InstantAction streaming service launches: play Monkey Island in this post

by JC Fletcher on Apr 29th 2010 10:50PM

InstantAction's new streaming service has debuted, allowing select games to be played not only in a browser window, but in an embeddable applet if desired (for those of you running Windows, anyway). The selection of games is currently limited to just one, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. The service allows the game to be played for 20 minutes for free, with the option to buy it for $9.99.

Does it work? See above. You know. The Monkey Island game running directly above this text. Did you realize when you opened Joystiq this evening that you'd be clicking your way into the future?

[Update: We mistakenly called the service "Gaikai-powered," which is inaccurate. Gaikai will provide some limited functionality in certain use cases; however, the embedded game above uses InstantAction's "chunking" technology to feed the actual executable to your computer. How and when will Gaikai be used? Look for our interview with InstantAction CEO Louis Castle later today.]

[Thanks, Matthew!]

Tags: Adventure, casual, instantaction, lucasarts, Monkey-Island, streaming, the-secret-of-monkey-island, the-secret-of-monkey-island-special-edition

Reader Comments (67)

All I'm getting is a server time-out.

This is definitely exciting though

Same here. I'll try it in another browser to be sure though. For some reason Firefox is giving me trouble with Google Maps too, so maybe it's a browser problem.

Sorry about that - we had a technical problem on our side, but it should be working great now!

Ian, since you seem to be part of this. You can keep your streaming games. I want physical software, or at least something I can play offline.

Thanks, but no thanks. I know I'm not alone. It might work just fine, but the day I can only access the games I've played through someone else' computer is the day I stop playing games all together and hook up my old consoles. This stuff is pretty cool from a technical standpoint, but to me it's scary as hell at the same time.

So with all due respect, I hope it fails so I can keep my physical media.

/rant

@Mystile - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised :)

You'll be happy to hear that these games are running natively on your machine. There's a small error in the original post in that this is not GaiKai powered - this is all us. GaiKai factors into our plans later.

Our tech is delivering the software to your computer and it is being played off of your hard drive - we're not just streaming the end-result.

Additionally, we're planning to have an offline client in the future to allow you to play even if you're not connected. We're a company of gamers and we share many of your concerns :)

That's actually very informative. We'll see how this pans out. Thanks for the info though.

Yo dawg. We heard you like games. So we put a game in your gaming blog so you can play games while you are reading about games.

Ha ha ha ha! I love you.

I dunno, but doesn't this sort of like Joystiq is selling Secret of Monkey Island, yet (presumably) doesn't receive any money for it? I know Joystiq often promotes games with their posts, and even provides the links to buy games sometimes, but this seems to take it a step further. Isn't having the game embedded in the site connecting Joystiq with the publisher a bit to closely?

Dude stop hatin' and just play your free 20 minutes!

That's a good point. I can assure you that we get no money off of this. We just thought this was really cool. Future InstantAction posts probably won't have the embed right at the top like that.

I have been getting the server timeout too! Just wait a while because they are currently having so many people playing.

Sorry about that - we had a technical problem, but we're back on track now!

-Ian, IA Support & Community

I don't see anything in Firefox.

The first time you come across the player it make take some time to load up. Did it eventually show? If not, please contact us directly at support@instantaction.com

Thanks!

- Ian, IA Support & Community

It's working now. Thanks, Ian!

Glad to hear :)

That's weird. It's telling me I need to install Flash on my phone's browser. I thought that was only for old things?

I have contacted InstantAction about the problem. Also your welcome Joystiq!

So when is valve gonna bring InstantAction to Mac?

:'(

(I KNOW IT AIN'T VALVE)

It seems to fail in IE8, Firefox 3.6, and the latest version of Google Chrome too.

In Firefox and Chrome it works as expected, but fails to connect to server.

In IE8 the "Play Demo" button along with the embed and log in sections are all messed up. The image inside the box stretches the full width of the box (even when the box itself stretches out when you hover on it). This is both ugly and, in the case of the Play Demo button, can cause issues with being able to use that box/button.

Also, if this is just Java-based (like it appears to be), shouldn't it be easily portable to *nix based systems?

Sorry about that - we had a problem our end, but we've got it sorted now. You should be able to play now!

- Ian, IA Support & Community

Also, to answer your other question, because the game is actually running natively on your machine once we get it to you your system has to support whatever format the game is in. So, the SoMI EXE won't work on linux or OS X. However, we're working on something special :)

- Ian

Oh cool. Hey thanks for the response.

I'll have to check out the demo. Money's running a bit dry at the moment, so I won't be buying the game, but perhaps in the future.

This whole thing looks pretty neat. Good job and good luck.

So, it keeps telling me I don't meet system requirements, but I do, and I even have all of the green check marks... sadface.

Oh Noes! :(

Please go ahead and shoot an email over to Support@instantaction.com

I'll get you right as rain in no time!

- Ian, IA Support & Community

Minimum OS requirement: Windows...@#$!#%!%!%

it says the MINIMUM is Windows, so why doesn't it work in Mac or Linux? ;)

Back to my NES cartridges...call me when this shit works 100% of the time.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, your NES cartridges work 100% of the time? Are you... are you a god?

RING RING! :)

Sorry about before - we had a problem on our side, but we're on it and it's fixed. Nothing quite like launching a new product, eh? :)

- Ian, Support & Community

This is there launch date of this new service. They are trying their hardest to get it up and running again. When you let people embed the game on many websites and lots of people see it there is a chance that it is going to have a problem or two at start up. Also yes you will get a thing saying you don't meet the requirements but they are working on it also. And they are working on the server timeout problems right now. Please be patient and let them get there service up and running again. Then you can enjoy the game on Joystiq, Facebook, and even my website.

Ok every try again it should be up and running now! ENJOY!

Hi Everyone!

Ian Tornay, community and support manager from InstantAction here!

We are aware that there -was- a problem with the site. We have corrected this problem and are now ready for you to play!

Sorry about the delay!

If you are still having problems at all please contact us directly at

support@instantaction.com

Ian

My God! Their watching us. now where did I put that aluminum foil...

Grey, you must not have heard. The aluminum foil actually amplifies the signals!

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

Did I say InstantAction? I meant InstantFoilBeGone!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

I think this proves pretty well that this technology doesn't scale very well. The kind of backend they would need to handle load would have to be the equivalent of all the computers sitting on the all their potential customer's desktops--which they already own. Thin-client works ok in corporate settings, because you can allot how much server power you will need for your potential usage...but for this kind of thing, if they want more than 1,000,000 customers, they'll need a ginormous server farm that would probably dwarf WoW several times over.

I mean, unless the only game they want to ever offer is monkey island. In that case, probably a server farm twice as big as WoW's could handle it for...hmmm...the east coast? And then when people get tired of it, they'll have to swap something in quick else they'll have a costly, idle server farm...but not too quick, otherwise they'll choke.

Crazy idea. best of luck to them, but I don't think it's going to work. maybe eventually, but not today.

It looks like the connect problems were not load related, which is great news! still not sure how the whole infrastructure would work under high load and with millions of customers. Or at least, not sure how it'd be advantageous over having, like, real computers and devices. My iPhone can play monkey island, and I don't need to pay $7 a month or however much for a subscription for the privilege.

Hey there!

Sorry about the problems we were having. We didn't go down due to server load, but rather because of a mistake on our part relating to a build. However, we're back on track and good to go!

Also, we should be able to scale pretty far out as, unlike other services that are being proposed, we're not streaming the end-result of the game. Instead, the game is being delivered to your hard drive very quickly in chunks that you can play as you're downloading the rest :)

Really great questions, though. Hit us up for more info if you want at info@instantaction.com

- Ian, IA Support & Community

@Scott There is no monthly subscription for this service. It is completely free. You just pay for the game once and you can play it anywhere anytime no subscription.

If people start coding in WebGL, stuff like this will be cross-platform and cross-browser, so long as that browser supports HTML5.

Not working? F.

Go ahead and shoot us an email at support@instantaction.com - I'll get you patched up ASAP.

- Ian, Support & Community

NoScript kills scripts dead. I'll just add an exception and OH MY GOD! Was 21st century technology always this advanced?

cool and all but i dont see any thing...

If you have any kind of script blocker make sure you make an exception. Otherwise, if you're still having trouble send us an email - support@instantaction.com

Thanks!

- Ian, IA Support & Community

Wow...now I feel like IA should have been paying for this...

Dear IA....run your own support forum.

Just reading the comments I can tell they really care. Ian has been here all along trying to be helpful. Most start ups wouldn't care about a thread on a blogging site. Customer Service goes a long ways when your product has hiccups.

This isn't strictly thin-client like OnLive/Gaikai. If you meet the system specs, the actual game downloads and you can start playing when only a fraction of the game is downloaded - on your machine. It launches the game locally with just the bare minimum it needs for the beginning of the game and then downloads the rest of the game as you play - streaming the game assets to you, not video of the game being played. It only uses thin-client streaming when you don't meet the system specs to run it locally. Basically, making it available as fast as possible to as many people as possible. That's the idea, anyhow.

Also, it's not a subscription service. There's a free trial and you can buy the game and play it whenever you want from anywhere.

I'm baffled at how many people aren't getting this. It says all this right in the article. There's only like 300 characters.. are you guys just posting in response to the title of the article?

Tell me where it says all that in the article... I don't see anything about it using your actual system, just the the game gets streamed. It says you need Windows which sort of implies that it uses your system but there's nothing that states it clearly, unless I'm not comprehending something in the article.

| 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 50 Comments

Sorry, you must be logged in to leave a comment.

Breaking News

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days

Rumor: Japanese Vita devs jumping ship, Sony responds 124 comments
Buy 2 get 1 free on select Vita games at GameStop starting today 114 comments
Sony's Rohde: proprietary Vita cards 'completely necessary' to combat piracy 112 comments
Sony: Call of Duty blasting onto Vita this fall 89 comments
Asura's Wrath review: Wrecking the curve 84 comments

InstantAction streaming service launches: play Monkey Island in this post

Reader Comments (67)

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 10:53PM hxczuner said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 10:54PM sonicspike41 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:27PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:46PM MystileArmor said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:58PM crash7800 said

Posted: Apr 30th 2010 12:34AM MystileArmor said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 10:58PM zack11190 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:26PM Jerk Face said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 10:59PM Brendan H said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:08PM whylekat said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:53PM Andrew Yoon said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:00PM GameGoal said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:29PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:00PM ch3burashka said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:31PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:40PM ch3burashka said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:58PM crash7800 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:02PM BoxcarWalrus said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:03PM GameGoal said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:06PM Acosta02 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:06PM sonicspike41 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:32PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:33PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 30th 2010 1:23AM sonicspike41 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:08PM Rhamsey said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:34PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:09PM Untouchable4rc said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:48PM MisterSquared said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:12PM kspraydad said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:22PM Acosta02 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:36PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:13PM GameGoal said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:15PM GameGoal said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:18PM crash7800 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:23PM Grey said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:37PM XLM said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:58PM crash7800 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:22PM sigma8 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:28PM sigma8 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:41PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:29PM GameGoal said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:43PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:44PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:50PM Zertoss said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:52PM johnny40000 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:59PM crash7800 said

Posted: Apr 29th 2010 11:57PM kspraydad said

Posted: Apr 30th 2010 2:27AM MMDero said

Posted: Apr 30th 2010 12:22AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 30th 2010 12:19AM SpeeGold said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is the next title from Frictional Games and Dear Esther dev

Featured Stories

Building A Machine for Pigs and expanding the universe of Amnesia

Persona 3, Tactics Ogre, and other PSP RPGs that will live on my Vita

Tekken 3D Prime Edition review: Far from prime edition

The most popular postsin the last 7 days

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days