It is not a mystery that PC gaming is one of the more expensive avenues of the gaming hobby, one that has gotten worse with the inflated prices of graphics cards due to cryptocurrency. Now, imagine if one could borrow a high-end gaming PC, without the act of physically moving the hardware or taking away that system from a friend or neighbor. This is what LiquidSky seeks to provide a solution for, creating a cloud gaming space that essentially works like an internet cafe over a connection, streamed directly to several compatible devices.
LiquidSky as a service is based on usage time. We were given an opportunity to play around with it a while back with enough credits to play through some games, but know that mileage may vary depending on the device being used and the internet speed the stream is being piped through. A lot of the anecdote from this look will also be from a build that may have been patched since, but the theory and general idea is where we’ll be focusing most of our thoughts and criticisms.
By using the LiquidSky app, users are able to tap into some pretty high-end gaming PC hardware. Downloading is quick and easy since the unit on the other end has a super fast internet connection. Basically users will be able to log into a remote desktop, download whatever games they want to play and then stream the experience to whatever device they want as long as the app supports this.
Now, being that I have had a low-end PC for many years, most of the games I own are not graphics intensive. I play a lot of retro-inspired games on my computer like Mummy Demastered or Starbound, so testing these titles didn’t make much sense. Oddly enough, the newest game I had on Steam was DMC.
DMC is a game I’ve only played briefly, but by firing up the LiquidSky app on my low-end desktop, I was able to play at a decent framerate and latency wasn’t noticeable. After messing around with it, I then tried this same game out on my Nvidia Shield, which also worked alright, even with it being the first model of that device.
Satisfied that things worked, though it wasn’t an ideal way to play as there were some connection stutters, I switched over to Overwatch to test the latency and play some games with the mouse and keyboard. I had been using a PS3 controller for DMC.
This was basically unplayable for me and I can’t imagine trying to be competitive in this fashion. I also couldn’t get the mouse to sync up properly by going through the LiquidSky UI. Even though I couldn’t get it to work, the UI was set up in an understandable way with a lot of options, so maybe I just missed a setting.
Let’s face it, being able to play games like Gears of War 4 on a Surface would be pretty awesome.
The fantasy of LiquidSky giving the user the ability to play on a really nice system with a super fast connection without the need for the major expense that that entails is super intriguing. Again this will vary from user to user, which honestly makes it hard to recommend straight out. Truthfully, if one is a player wanting to play something just out of reach on their machine, maybe try out LiquidSky for a bit, mess with some settings to fine tweak it and see what happens.
This brings me to the pricing, which I can’t say I find appealing.
For ten dollars a month, the user gets access 25 hours of gameplay with 200 GB of storage and that storage will last for seven days at a time. Of course with cloud saving being in many PC titles anyways, the storage isn’t that big of a deal, especially if there is only one or two games that the user wants to play. For twenty dollars a month, the time increases to 80 hours a month, 500 GB of storage, and permanent storage persistence.
My problem with this model is that there is a lot of tinkering that I found myself doing, which means that time was being eaten up by setup. For hardcore gamers, even 80 hours a month is probably not enough, meaning they’ll be paying a little extra for more time. It does appear that this issue is being addressed by the community, so this pricing will likely change in the future.
Now, my rather specific issues aside, LiquidSky is an incredible idea. Those who lack the funds to get a modern PC could really benefit with this system while they are saving up or to try some higher end games through their tablet or mobile device. Right now, I just don’t think the current pricing is the best way to go about things and I’m sure there are some kinks that need to be worked out as I was completely unable to play even Overwatch.
Granted, I tested this several months ago, so things could have been patched by now. Truthfully, I just wanted to share the information that LiquidSky exists and it might be worth checking out.
Find more information on the official LiquidSky website. A partial subscription to LiquidSky was provided for the purpose of this article.
