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Cloud-based online gaming startup Gaikai<\/a> has raised $5 million in funding, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe company is headed by longtime game veteran David Perry, maker of games such as the Matrix and chief creative officer at video game publisher Acclaim. The company declined to comment on the filing, which does not identify investors. But one of the company’s directors is Mitch Lasky, a partner at Benchmark Capital.<\/p>\n
Like its rivals OnLive and Otoy, Gaikai is planning to create a service that can deliver games on demand<\/a>, without the need to install or run software on a computer or game machine. Rather, it runs the game on servers in the cloud and shares constantly updated video images of the action with the gamer. <\/p>\n While seven-year-old OnLive has raised much more money and has partners like AT&T<\/a>, Gaikai is smaller and has less ambitious plans. For instance, Perry told me that Gaikai could be used to give users a better way to shop for Flash-based games by showing them a live preview of how the game works when a user hovers over an icon in an appstore. But it could also be used to provide games directly to end users via digital distribution and make an end run around physical game retailers, as OnLive is doing.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goals are really simple, to remove all the friction between hearing about a game and trying it out, to help reduce the cost of gaming, to grow video game audiences, to raise the revenue that publishers and developers can earn, and (most importantly) to make games accessible everywhere,\u201d Perry said in an interview last year. \u201cIf the iPhone AppStore has taught us anything, [it’s that] when you make it easy to check things out, you get a billion downloads.\u201d<\/p>\n Perry didn\u2019t reveal Gaikai\u2019s business model. But the advantages of playing games stored on servers and not on home computers are myriad. First, gamers can buy the games on the spot and play them almost immediately. The gamers can also play high-end games on relatively low-end hardware. Perry said gamers could use Gaikai to play high-speed racing games such as Need For Speed on low-performance netbooks (web computers which are smaller than laptops). Since retailers aren\u2019t involved, the games could either cost less or publishers can keep more of the money. And gamers never have to download patches or other upgrades. They just need a decent broadband connection to be able to play. That opens even hardcore games to a broader audience.<\/p>\n Based in the Netherlands, Gaikai’s co-founders include Perry, Andrew Gault and Rui Pereira.<\/p>\n