Play Key cloud server. Playkey: how to play for free and what alternatives are there
Playkey is a special program for remotely connecting games. The essence of this application is that the developer offers the gamer to use the services of one of the company’s many remote servers, on which the game is launched. In this case, only streaming video is transmitted to the user. Thus modern games You can run it even on weak computers, but you can play on high settings.
This approach allowed the company to create a completely new software product intended for the Russian gaming market - Playkey technology based on storing information in the “cloud” and based on providing users paid services remote resource servers. The resource is paid and gamers, in order to use the services of the application, sign up for a monthly paid subscription, gaining access to powerful servers and, as it were, renting this power to run games on their PCs. However, there are also those who manage to play for free without a subscription.
A similar principle, which involves the use of powerful servers remotely, makes it possible to run even the most demanding games from world developers on simple user PCs, as well as on some tablets and TVs that support the Smart TV function. Playkey is adapted to work with all popular operating systems (supported by the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems, Apple's Mac OS, as well as mobile operating systems: Android, iOS and others).
Thus, the concept of “cloud games” appeared, which are launched remotely, but you can play on your computer. The main condition for this is a stable and high-speed Internet connection.
Separately, it is worth mentioning the use of the NVIDIA GRID platform, on the basis of which Playkey provides high data transfer speeds and high-quality graphics. Despite the use of powerful servers, the video streaming speed does not exceed 5-10 Mbit/sec, which allows you to run the game on almost any computer.
Platform capabilities
The program has a number of advantages, thanks to which it has practically no competitors. Among the main and undeniable advantages of this software product worth highlighting:- High-speed video streaming, including excellent quality graphics.
- The ability to support even the most demanding games from global manufacturers, which is so important for avid gamers.
- You can download Playkey for free in Russian (a client for connecting to servers).
- The parameters of the system itself remain unchanged. do not require any special conditions work.
- The application, due to its cross-platform nature, makes it possible to install it on any of the well-known OS and even on mobile devices.
- Using Playkey does not require downloading and installing the game, because the game itself runs on a remote application server, and only streaming video is transmitted to the user.
- A huge catalog of games of a wide variety of styles and genres.
- The service servers allow you to save information about registered gamers: player profile, data about him, game files, etc.
Another pleasant aspect of working with the resource is the constant updating of game versions, installation of new drivers, and provision of other technical support. resource support.
Despite the huge number of advantages, the Playkey service is not without some disadvantages. Thus, the transmission speed of streaming graphics depends on the distance settlement, where the client PC is located, from the Playkey server providing its power. Also, the video stream speed is 30 frames/sec, which is more reminiscent of working with older consoles and can be quite annoying. In addition to the broadcast speed, many users note the slowdown between user actions when entering data from the keyboard or mouse, with a response action on the display.
conclusions
To work with the client, you just need to download Playkey for Windows for free, install it on your computer, then register on the website by creating an account and paying for a subscription. After these procedures, the user gains access to games, where he can select the game he is interested in, confirming the launch of the external application. Before subscribing, the resource developers offer users to try free games to give them the opportunity to evaluate the quality of the application. After subscribing, the Play Key user gets full access to a huge catalog of games of various genres and styles.
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Latest version of Playkey for Windows, located on our website, will help users who want to play dynamic modern games, but do not want to upgrade their “weak” equipment. This software is cloud internet service, allows you to instantly launch the required applications. It is easy to use and helps save time needed to download and install games.
Key Benefits
The new version of Playkey, available for installation from our website, will become an indispensable assistant for users who want to play popular games on a weak home or work computer. This software allows you to access modern, dynamic applications. You no longer have to spend money on upgrading your equipment. Among the advantages: convenient control system, availability of a library with high-quality games, speed, ease of use.
System requirements
Playkey software will work correctly even on the weakest hardware. There are no special requirements for the processor, video card, or RAM. The user must ensure an uninterrupted connection to the Internet. Another condition is simple registration on Playkey. If the specified parameters are met, every interested user will be able to download and install the application.
Functionality
It is very easy to download Playkey for free via a direct link, taking advantage of the offer posted on our website. This software, which is a gaming cloud service, will help you save the time needed to install the game you like. It provides a high level of reliability. After all, in the event of a malfunction computer equipment all saves are saved.
Among the main features that the service provides to modern users, it is worth noting:
- broadcasting streaming video on the player’s screen using a remote server;
- behind monetary reward the user can buy new games;
- You can play on any device (cross-platform);
- high transmission speed of streaming graphics;
- excellent quality of the broadcast image;
- convenient settings.
Do you want to play multiplayer applications that require serious hardware support to function? Download software called Playkey. This powerful cloud service will become one of your favorite applications. The solution, which has a lot of advantages, is constantly being improved and developed. It works based on video streaming technology and provides access to any game programs. Regardless of the speed of the Internet and the characteristics of your computer equipment, Playkey will cope with the tasks! Happy using!
With all this, OnLive technologies were advanced. The developers created a system that worked stably, without problems on the user side, provided there was a good connection.
After bankruptcy, all OnLive patents and assets were sold to the investment company Lauder Partners, and then the OnLive service was relaunched, but with a new team.
The latest effort to gain a foothold in the market was the CloudLift service, which offered modern games from Steam and instant continuation of an interrupted gaming session on another device. Just before it closed, OnLive even began offering a CloudLift Enterprise option: streaming business applications to low-power devices for large corporations and enterprises.
Screenshot from the OnLive website with information about the termination of the service
However, all this did not help and in 2015 the company announced the sale of all patents to Sony and the cessation of operations.
Gaikai's success
Gaikai was also announced at Game Developers Conference 2009. The company was going to do this later, but the announcement of OnLive at GDC 2009 forced the company to take a retaliatory step.
Screenshot from Gaikai website
On July 1, 2009, Gaikai founder David Perry published data on Gaikai, as well as a demonstration video, on his personal blog. The video showed some games, including Mario Kart 64 and World of Warcraft, running in a browser window. Perry stated: "We developed this [referring to Gaikai] for real internet. We don't claim to have 5,000 pages of patents, it didn't take us seven years, and we don't claim to have developed a custom hardware chip for single-millisecond latency encoding. As you can see, we don’t need all this, and therefore our costs will be much less.”
On the same day, GameSpot published an interview with David Perry, in which the latter talked about the Gaikai service, its differences from OnLive, relationships with publishers and the business model. Unlike OnLive, the company did not try to sell cloud services to the end user. Instead, it provided a platform for computer game makers where players could try demos of the latest titles for free.
As Perry said in an interview with OnLive: “They plan to fight Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo at the same time, which will be a difficult task. Additionally, they will have to use an expensive marketing strategy to attract players. And even if they can do this, they will only be able to take some market share away from Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft."
As history has shown, this approach worked, and in 2012 it was announced that the service would be sold to Sony for $380 million. At the same time, as of 2012, OnLive and Gaikai had similar technologies. For example, you can see a detailed comparison of the work of these 2 services using the example of several games.
Cloud gaming services today
The Wikipedia page lists a couple of dozen services, active and defunct. Let's try to understand this apparent abundance. I discarded projects that were no longer active, as well as projects that related to file streaming. As a result, the list of projects to be considered has been significantly reduced. The rest were divided into 3 parts: existing commercial projects for PCs, projects for consoles and TV, and small projects.Commercial projects for PC
▍LiquidSky
The founder of the service is young 23-year-old Ian McLoughlin. The service itself is at the beta testing stage, which does not prevent it from currently having more than 500,000 users around the world. In September 2016, the service received investments of $4,000,000 from a group of investors. You can read more about this. The LiquidSky service is built on Nvidia GRID technology.
Screenshot of the LiquidSky virtual desktop
This service is interesting primarily because the Liquidsky service itself does not care at all what you do in this cloud. A typical situation is when players, using this service and having an account on Steam, quickly download any previously purchased game to a remote server, launch it and play for fun, saving it in Steam itself. At the same time, by paying a monthly subscription for $14.99, users receive an additional 500 GB of data storage on the server. If you look at Dropbox, which charges $8.25 for 1 TB of data, it doesn't seem that expensive. Subscription limit is 80 hours per month.
Screenshot from LiquidSky website
This service appeared quite recently and at the time of its appearance it had a huge number of bugs. Since the service is quite active on social networks and the Internet, you can see what shortcomings the service has at the moment. A few months ago, for example, when I logged into my account, I noticed that the cursor was moving erratically across the screen, and I had difficulty controlling its movement. When I finally went into my game library on Steam, I noticed that there were other people's games there. It turns out that I ended up in someone else's account and the owner of this account and I were fighting over control of the cursor, which explained its strange behavior.
▍Playkey
The service itself is a Russian project, also built on the Nvidia Grid. The implementation of the idea to create the project began in 2012, and throughout 2014 the service was in open beta testing mode. At the turn of 2014-2015. the project has reached the release stage, having gone into commerce.Their website has a list of games that a user can play. When paying for a monthly subscription for 590 rubles. the user gets access to 150 free games on the service and gets the opportunity to buy some paid games and play them on Playkey. Subscription limit is 70 hours per month.
The project is local, which automatically protects it from other competitors. However, initially the service did not work. You can read more about this in the article.
Screenshot from Playkey website
According to Playkey CEO Egor Guryev, in May 2015 the number of paying users was only 282 people. However, the company managed to correct the situation by changing its business model. As of March 2016, the service had 200 thousand registered, 10 thousand subscribed and 4 thousand regularly paying users. To change the situation, the following changes have been made to the company’s activities:
- They changed the business model - “At the first stage, we had a subscription, by purchasing which, the user received access to 120+ games, but in this way we could not get new products from the developers and offered old content, .... Users saw minimal value in such a selection. Games that are available at low prices on sales have been completed by many more than once and at the same time worked well on computers that were upgraded 1-2 years ago. The developers did not provide new content for subscription, and it is clear why - they were afraid of losing income from selling games at retail, receiving absolutely unpredictable income in subscription. We launched individual purchases of content and the ability to play games that were previously purchased. This gave us access to new products, which account for 85% of demand. At the same time, we transformed the subscription to the game catalog (which was abandoned) into payment for the use of our server capacity. Based on current metrics, we see that the average user plays 20 hours per month on Playkey.”
- Rebuilt marketing - “We were faced with very low conversion, due to the fact that our communications did not answer the question - who we are, what we are, what problems we solve. Now we are focused on one thing - “Play modern games on a weak computer.” The video “GTA 5 on a calculator,” which we sponsored, has 820 thousand views on YouTube.”
- Changed the content - “We talked about this in paragraph 1, but I’ll add that we focused our offer on those games that are demanding on the user’s computer and are in high demand (that is, new items). We abandoned everything else. That's why we don't have JA2, 3 Heroes, etc. These games work well on low-end laptops and can be played without using our technology, saving money.”
Screenshot of Saints Row 4 running on Playkey
If we compare the problems of Playkey in 2015 with the reasons for the bankruptcy of OnLive in 2012, we can see the similarity of the sources of problems for both companies: they both did not have a well-thought-out business model, did not offer clients content that would be in demand, and both of them lacked a well-thought-out marketing strategy.
▍PlayStation Now
PlayStation Now is a game streaming service that allows you to play PlayStation 3 games on PC, mobile devices, TVs, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4. The service itself is the result of the use of technologies and developments from Gaikai, which Sony acquired in 2012 for $380 million. Officially launched as a subscription service in the United States on January 13, 2015.
Screenshot from the PlayStation Now website
In August 2016, the first PlayStation Now for PC was launched in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands. Currently, the service provides access to more than 400 games released on PS3. There is a seven-day free trial for new users.
All you need to use is download the special PlayStation Now application and connect your DualShock 4 or other joystick. The service is not yet available in Russia, but some craftsmen have found methods to bypass this limitation. you can see how they managed it.
According to the latest data, the company has sold more than 40 million PS4 consoles worldwide - a huge market for the company. However, the service has a problem, which is that this service can only play PS3 games. The reason for this lies in the technology used by Sony.
Due to these same features, it is impossible to play PS3 games on PS4 consoles without a cloud service, because... These consoles are completely incompatible.
PlayStation Vue Discounts
In addition, Sony's service is quite expensive - PlayStation Now is the most expensive of the listed services and costs $20 for a 1-month subscription. And the prices of their PlayStation Vue video streaming service, to put it mildly, “surprised” me. By comparison, Netflix offers similar services in the US for $9.99 per month.
Services for set-top boxes and TV
I have never used such services, perhaps that is why I am a little biased towards them. However, the GeForce NOW and GameFly projects are large developing projects that I could not miss. They had to create a separate category. I took the picture below from the Nvidia website. It can hardly be called objective, but from it you can get a general idea of the services GeForce NOW, PlayStation Now and GameFly.
Comparison of services from the Nividia website
▍GameFly
Previously, the company's business was expressed in the figure below. As you can see from it, the company used to provide games for rent. But time passed, and such a model ceased to be competitive in the modern world.
GameFly's old business model
Therefore, in June 2015, it acquired the Israeli company Playcast Media Systems and immediately launched a new service. The company is changing priorities and starting to look up to date.
Screenshot from GameFly website
At the moment, the main markets for the service are North America and Europe. According to the company, the number of service subscribers is about 334,000 people. To use it, you need to be the owner of one of the smart TVs made by LG, Samsung or Philips.
▍GeForce NOW
The GeForce NOW service allows you to play on Shield Portable, Shield Tablet, Shield Android TV devices with a subscription. The service offers 3 months free to Shield series buyers, and then requires a $7.99 per month subscription. Most of the games are included in the subscription, but the rest you need to pay for.
Devices to use GeForce NOW
I couldn’t find the number of subscribers to this service, but, according to the company, more than 100,000 people in 190 countries took part in testing the service alone.
Small projects
▍Ubitus GameNow
The service is more dead than alive. The latest articles and tweets on this service from the Taiwanese company Ubitus date back to 2013. The service has a working website with games, but I was only able to launch a couple of them after several attempts. I can’t say that my Internet is excellent, but the rest of my services started without any problems.
Screenshot from Ubitus GameNow showing King's Bounty: The Legend
▍PlayGiga
Despite the start of the project in 2013, it was never presented final product for users. The company maintains a website where information is updated, but the project has not yet taken off. It’s not even clear yet what platforms they are going to work on.▍Gface
From the series everyone ran, and I ran. It seems that Crytek, the creator of the service, did not fully understand what gaming in the cloud was, and created a forum for communication between players of their game.▍Kalydo
The Wikipedia page states that the service is active, but it appears that it quietly died in early 2016, or perhaps earlier. It was a file streaming service where you could start playing almost instantly after purchasing the game, and the rest of the data would be downloaded as you played.▍LoudPlay
A Russian project that has not yet taken off. There is practically no information on the project website itself. There are several reviews on testing the service. The essence of the service is that the user rents a game server on which any game can be installed. According to some information on the Internet, the service is dead and its developers have disappeared.▍Playincloud
Also a Russian project, very unique. According to the developer, the service is not commercial, but the website lists the rates for its use. Players use the service in turns: one comes in, the other leaves. The server comes pre-installed with games that users can play.▍Leap Computing
It didn’t take off and maybe it won’t take off. The developers demonstrated the operation of the system under controlled conditions and the project stalled. The developers promised to provide a working version a year ago, but the problem is still there.
Screenshot from Leap Computing website
▍Turbo.net
The service does not apply to games. As the developers of the service indicate, it is intended for developers and IT managers and allows you to create a virtual space for developed applications.▍G-cluster
Initially, I believed the information on the Wikipedia page that the service had stopped working, but this turned out to be not entirely true. Yes, the company G-cluster Global Corporation itself went bankrupt and was liquidated, but all its assets, patents, etc. transferred to its parent company Broadmedia Corporation, which continued to provide services. But the error on the page is understandable, because... I still couldn't find a single rating for English language, how really well this service works.The service is a pioneer in game streaming and was created back in 2000, but never became profitable, which led to the liquidation of the company. During all this time, he never became popular in the world. It doesn't seem to be particularly popular in Japan, the service's main market, based on ratings in Google Play. You can see the history and business model of this service for 2010.
▍The rest
There are other players in the cloud gaming market that are not covered in this article. For example, Ubisoft Entertainment, Amazon, CiiNOW, GamingCloud, Google, Happy Cloud, IBM, Microsoft, Nintendo, Samsung Electronics, TransGaming, Valve were noted on it (I took this list from the analytical report of Technavio). As you can see in this list you can find almost all the major companies in the field of electronics. Probably, other companies offering network solutions such as IaaS, PaaS or SaaS could offer some kind of product to end users, but so far there have been no such attempts.Comparison of using Playkey and LiquidSky services
For Russians, only these 2 specified projects are currently available from large gaming services in the cloud. There are also, for example, the Russian Playincloud or Ubitus GameNow, which you can also try to use, but they are either small or only partially functioning.To visually compare these services, I used the game Europa Universalis 4, computer game in the genre of global strategy, which was developed by Paradox Interactive. Is not Best game to compare the two systems, but her example is sufficient to illustrate the difference in operation between the two services:
As can be seen from the comparison of the services provided, both have their advantages and disadvantages. For me personally, the LiquidSky service is more interesting, but the remoteness of the available servers negates all the advantages and does not allow using this service.
Pros and cons of gaming in the cloud for end users
The advantages and disadvantages of cloud gaming have not changed since OnLive and Gaikai. However, with the development of technology, the quality of communication and acquaintance, everything more users with this technology the priorities of these features change, i.e. how important they are to the user.Advantages
Flaws
- Picture quality – the higher the picture quality, the more resources will be spent in the cloud and the higher will be the requirements for the bandwidth of the communication channel and its stability. There is often a situation where cloud service providers compress the image sent to end users.
- Internet traffic - cloud services require consumption large quantity traffic. At the same time, the Internet speed must be stable, at least 5 Mbit. When playing games in the cloud, a user can consume more than 3 GB of Internet per hour. As picture quality improves, traffic consumption increases proportionally. If game streaming becomes more common, network congestion will increase dramatically.
Picture quality in the cloud and on PC
- The delay is something that cannot be avoided. The game will respond to the player's actions faster when it is running on the local computer.
- Copyright protection - publishers can prohibit or limit the use of games in certain territories, set their own prices or terms of use.
- The emergence of a monopolist - a situation may arise when a monopolist arises in the market and will be able to set rules in the local market.
- Bankruptcy of the service or changes to the terms of use - the situation with OnLive could be repeated, when all purchased games and subscriptions simply disappeared in 2015, when Sony bought all the company’s assets, but did not compensate for any obligations to users.
Technologies
In 2009, when OnLive and Gaikai emerged, they showed that game streaming was possible. Before this, there was an opinion that this was impossible due to the high latency between the server and the local computer: information must travel through networks to the server, be processed there, compressed and sent back to the client’s device.Companies have taken different approaches to solve this problem. The OnLive service focused on hardware and developed its own video encoder. Their idea, according to this article, was to divide the stream into 16 rectangular sections and process each of these sections with a separate encoder. Gaikai approached the problem using existing hardware solutions, but using its software developments.
Own video encoder OnLive
Today, there are 3 companies that have and use their own game streaming technologies: Nvidia, Sony and GameFly. Most other game streaming services use Nvidia technology.
Nvidia
Nvidia developed the Nvidia Grid technology, which was announced in 2012. The company immediately announced that Nvidia Grid is not a gaming service, but a product that will be offered to cloud gaming service operators. At that time, this solution was used by almost all startups in this area, including Gaikai, Playcast, Ubitus, CiiNow and G-Cluster services. This technology is currently used by LiquidSky and Playkey. On this video shows how Nvideo Grid works for the end user.
Description of how Nvidia GRID works from the Nvidia website
The core element of Nvidia GRID is the Nvidia GPU. On the Nvidia website you can see the specifications and how it all works.
The company currently offers its gaming service GeForce Now. To use it, you must have an Nvidia device: one of the devices in the Shield Portable, Shield Android TV, or Shield Tablet product lines.
Sony
In 2012 Sony company acquired the Gaikai company. This allowed the company to create the PlayStation Now platform based on Gaikai technologies in 2014. In 2015, Sony 2015 acquired OnLive's patents.Sony's new division was tasked with developing technology that would allow PS3 games to be played in the cloud on PS4, TVs, tablets and smartphones. They first experimented with installing regular PS3s in data centers, but the experiment was not successful for obvious reasons. After this, Sony developed motherboard, which features scaled-down components from eight PS3 consoles that can operate independently. By placing such boards in data centers, Sony created the PlayStation NOW service. The GPU used in this board was jointly developed by Sony and Nvidia 11 years ago, based on Nvidia's GeForce 7 GPU.
Motherboard for PlayStation NOW service
It is clear that due to this technology, the Playstation Now service can only work with games on the PlayStation 3.
GameFly
GameFly acquired Israeli company Playcast Media Systems in June 2015, which it claims offers its own “market ready and scalable” technology. This service is available on Amazon Fire TV and Samsung Smart TV devices. Compared to Nvidia and Sony, the company is much smaller, and Playcast previously used Nvidia Grid in its operations. I probably wouldn't add this company to this list if Nvidia didn't view GameFly as one of the main competitors for its own service. This can be seen from the comparison of their services from the Nvidia website in the article earlier.
Incumbents in the game streaming market with proprietary technologies
Market development and problems
When the OnLive service appeared, it caused a sensation. “The most powerful gaming system in the world” and “Gaming revolution” could be found in the headlines of magazines and newspapers. In 2012, shortly before its bankruptcy, analysts estimated its value at $1.8 billion. Four years have passed since then, but it remains difficult to predict the future of the game streaming market.World situation
In its 2016-2020 Cloud Gaming Services Market Outlook report, Technavio predicts that the global market will grow at 29% per year. It seems excellent prospects for market participants, even outpacing 18% growth in the video streaming market, according to Markets and Markets.However, looking back, it is difficult to believe the accuracy of this forecast. In a previous report, Technavio named G-Cluster, Nvidia and OnLive as the main providers of gaming cloud services, 2 of which had already ceased operations by this point.
Picture from Technavio company presentation (collage)
There is no doubt that the cloud gaming market will continue to develop as... The speed and quality of the Internet in the world is constantly growing, and large companies have begun to invest in cloud gaming service market projects, but at the same time, the market remains risky.
There are several factors hindering the development of the cloud gaming market. Firstly, there is a delay in signal transmission, which cannot be completely eliminated. Unlike streaming video, where it is possible to use a memory buffer, this is not possible for cloud gaming.
The second problem is that large tech companies with established businesses simply don't need cloud gaming. With the development of games in the cloud, the market for games on physical media will be cannibalized and sales of computer equipment will decline. Perhaps this is why neither Nvidia nor Sony are seeking to implement these technologies en masse for the end user and only offer them as some kind of fashionable feature for their devices and only, basically, outdated games.
In the future, companies operating in this area may face problems encountered by the world leader in video streaming, Netflix. According to the latest information, during 2012-2016, the catalog of films offered by the service decreased by 2 times. The reason is the complexity and high cost of rights to purchase content and increased competition in the market. The same thing could happen in the gaming equipment market, because when using the cloud, it becomes unimportant what device the player is using.
Netflix's main competitors
Problems for market participants may arise not only with game manufacturers, but also with their distributors, for example, Steam, GOG.com or Origin services. So, according to the terms of the Steam Subscriber Agreement, all buyers are subscribers, i.e. do not own the rights to the purchased games and if Steam is liquidated, they may lose all games. Such an event could have Negative influence on the prospects for market development.
Situation in Russia
The research company Akamai Technologies has published the results of testing the speed of Internet access in different countries. In Russia average speed Internet access increased by 29% compared to last year and amounted to 12.2 Mbit/s in the first quarter of 2016.
Picture from the Russia Insider website
According to statements from service representatives, the minimum throughput The channel must be 5-15 Mbit/s to use them. However, this is only the minimum required speed, which I would raise to at least 25 Mbit/s for comfortable use. For example, my provider provides me with a 60 Mbit/s channel. Despite this, it often turns out that Playkey detects that my connection quality is poor. Based on these estimates, if the same rate of Internet speed growth continues in the near future, then the required level of 25 Mbit/s in Russia will be achieved within approximately 3 years.
Picture from Yandex research
It seems that from the diagram above it follows that so far only in the KFO and FEFD the speed of the offered Internet is significantly lower than the required 25 Mbit/s, but everything is not so good. Just look at the reviews of one of the Internet providers offering speeds from 50 Mbit/s, such as these: “Rot in hell”, “NO WAY”, “It can’t be worse, deception”, etc. – and it becomes clear that these people are unlikely to become happy users of cloud games in the near future.
Conclusion
Over the past 7 years since the emergence of OnLive and Gaikai services, the industry has come a long way. At the moment, the market is growing rapidly and so far companies do not have to push their elbows to attract players. But this may soon change, the market will become saturated and large companies will begin a battle for end users.While many gamers have become disillusioned with cloud gaming due to high costs, poor connectivity, or outdated games, talk of game streaming technologies is no longer surprising. The necessary technologies already exist, Internet connection speeds are constantly growing, and companies are offering players more and more advanced services.
Cloud Mario
After OnLive and Gaikai services leave the market, you shouldn’t give up on gaming in the cloud. Pioneers in business usually have a difficult fate. You don't have to look far for examples. The leaders of the modern market in most areas are not their pioneers. Amazon wasn't the first to sell books online—Books.com was the first. Internet search is not the idea of Google, but of companies like AltaVista. Social media don't owe their existence to Facebook - MySpace came before.
Cloud gaming services, which include Playkey, actually help owners of old and weak computers use new ones without technical compatibility problems.
How do such services work and is it possible to replace them with something in order to save money? Money?
In this material we will answer the question, what is Playkey, how to play for free on this service?
Definition
Playkey is one of several most popular cloud services for online games, which allows you to carry out the gaming process based on technology.
The advantage is that due to the temporary storage of data in cloud storage, it allows you to run any, even the most, on weak and old devices, computers or tablets.
Each such service has a certain list of games that you can play with it, and Playkey has a fairly extensive list, which is the secret of the service’s popularity.
The use of such a service is paid for by users, and access to it is provided by subscription.
There are three subscription options at the moment:
- “I don’t play much” at a price of 1290 rubles per month, giving access to 70 hours of gaming time;
- "I play a lot" at a price of 1990 rubles per month, giving access to 200 hours of gaming time;
- "I always play" at a price of 2290 rubles per month, giving unlimited access to gaming time with maximum graphic and other game settings.
The service is all the more convenient because you don’t need to download anything or otherwise load your computer’s resources. Naturally, in addition to the paid subscription, there is also a free demo version, which allows you to get acquainted with the game itself and the features of the service on a specific device.
Benefits of the service
What are the advantages of using this approach to games:
In view of all these positive aspects, many users, even those with fairly powerful devices, still resort to using such services.
Flaws
Despite the fact that the service has won many fans, it, like this approach itself, still has a number of disadvantages from a technological point of view. Among them:
- Limited list of games that can be played this way;
- It is necessary to have a video card with fairly good parameters, since the load on it will still be significant if the player wants to get any acceptable picture quality;
- During the game there is a fairly large load on the RAM and quite a lot of it is required, since the quality depends on it gameplay;
- For comfortable, uninterrupted gaming, you need to have a fairly stable Internet connection that works continuously, with a minimum of reconnections;
- Exclusively paid access to the service, which ultimately turns out to be quite expensive and unprofitable even if you play various applications for a long time.
- not all users want to pay for one-time and short-term visits to the service, if in fact they never use all 20 hours (with a minimum subscription) of game time. This is especially a shame considering that the subscription is not that cheap.
How to play for free?
Below we will look at several ways in which the user can get acquainted with the service in full for free, try out a few games and even play for a while without having to subscribe.
Method 1: Help a friend
This is the simplest and most standard method, the principle of which is to share one subscription with several people.
If you and a friend (or even a few) play very little, then one subscription with 20 hours of access to game time may be enough for you all.
In fact, this method has no drawbacks, except for agreeing on the gameplay time for each participant and exchanging personal data. In general, you can play with one subscription, therefore, in fact, several users of the same account will not interfere with each other.
Using a subscription in this way became possible due to a rather serious mistake by the developers, when they did not link a specific account to a computer. On the one hand, this allows a user with a subscription to play from different devices (for example, from and). But on the other hand, it opens up the possibility of sharing a subscription.
Method 2: Demo version
The most official and “honest” way free game on this service.
This is done by using a free demo version of games on the service.
The advantages of this method include complete legality and simplicity; the disadvantages are that only some games are available in this mode, as well as its limited time.
The demo game lasts 2 hours and is valid for the first seven days after registration. That is, starting from the moment you registered on the service and purchased a subscription, you can return the money for it within 7 days without giving reasons, but only if you played less than 2 hours on it. If you played 2 hours 1 minute even on the day of purchase, you still won’t be able to get your money back.
In addition, the developers of some games, for example, provide free demo versions of their games for such services, including Playkey.
To use this version, do the following:
- Find the game you are interested in in the catalog on the Playkey website;
- If it has a demo version, then you will see a large inscription notifying you about it;
- Click on the button "Download the application";
- Save and install the application from the service through which you can use the game;
- Launch the application from a shortcut on your desktop;
- Play.
Depending on the developers and features of the service, access to demo versions may be provided under certain conditions.
A significant disadvantage of this approach is that very few games have such free versions.
Method 3: Promo codes
Sometimes the service provides some promotional codes to get several free hours of using a particular game.
In order to receive them, it is better to subscribe to the service’s newsletter - this way you will be one of the first to learn about current applications related to game time.
In addition, you can search for promotional codes on the Internet.– from time to time, unused promotional codes for free gaming time appear on thematic forums (although the likelihood of being the first to use it is quite low).
