Jump | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Wed, 20 Sep 2017 15:59:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Jump | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Jump launches indie game subscription service https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/damien-cox/jump-launches-indie-game-subscription-service/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/damien-cox/jump-launches-indie-game-subscription-service/#respond Wed, 20 Sep 2017 15:58:39 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=347205 Jump launched its new game subscription service this Tuesday, delivering over 60 games for $9.99 per month. While other subscription services often cater to AAA titles, Jump bases its growing library around the more “revered” indie games, even launching with Ed McMillen and Tyler Glaiel's new game The End Is Nigh. The idea for Jump …

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Jump launched its new game subscription service this Tuesday, delivering over 60 games for $9.99 per month. While other subscription services often cater to AAA titles, Jump bases its growing library around the more “revered” indie games, even launching with Ed McMillen and Tyler Glaiel's new game The End Is Nigh.

The idea for Jump came about when creator and former indie developer Anthony Palma wanted to combat distribution and discoverability problems within the independent game industry. Often overshadowed by the higher-budget AAA titles pushed by bigger studios, Palma and his team saw the potential of online technologies and how they could help indie developers get a foothold in the market. The primary aim is to offer easily accessible games to an audience that might have missed great titles while offering a safer, more sustainable income for independent developers.

Combating the problem that other game subscription services encounter, Jump doesn’t stream games to your computer. Instead, it uses proprietary HyperJump delivery technology which provides players with the same experience as a game that is fully installed on their machine, but without long download times and without requiring large amounts of disk space. This results in no latency issues or dips in quality while playing, with users being often being able to jump into the game in under a minute.

Although a fully-fledged service, Jump is still in early stages with many other features planned. In October, users will gain the ability to manually allocate hard drive space for its caching system. Players will also experience the platform’s recommendation system which gradually learns what its users like based on genre, play-style, motivations and themes. Each month will see approximately 10 new games make their way to the service, starting on October 1st.

These features are built with both the customer and developer in mind, delivering the right game to the right customer. In fact, Jump holds indie developers in high regard, giving them a generous 70% take of the revenues based on minutes played by users. Additionally, some developers will receive payments in advance to ease any risk for them.

“Independent studios are the lifeblood of innovation in the industry, chairman of Gazillion Games and former CEO of Sega Tom Kalinske said. Many of the greatest game developers in the history of video games started out as pioneering indies pushing the boundaries of game-making, storytelling, and technology. Indie studios are able to take risks, be provocative, and drive the industry forward with their creativity and new ideas, and are helpful in getting new gamers, programmers, and artists, working in the industry.”

Despite only being available on PC for the time being, Palma describes the service as being platform-agnostic and does intend to offer it to console users and eventually VR. This might also expand into triple-A titles, but indie developers will always be first and foremost as Jump is the home for independent games.

KitGuru Says: My experience of Jump so far has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s been smooth and without issues. Knowing that the library is set to expand exponentially in the coming months only invests me more into the platform they are building. Do you like the idea of Jump?

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Jump aims to be “Netflix for indie games” while still benefiting developers https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/damien-cox/jump-aims-to-be-netflix-for-indie-games-while-still-benefiting-developers/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/damien-cox/jump-aims-to-be-netflix-for-indie-games-while-still-benefiting-developers/#respond Tue, 11 Jul 2017 20:50:40 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=340413 Cloud gaming solutions have experienced a rocky start with some failing before gamers get a chance to experience them. Jump aims to succeed where its predecessors have not, offering a Netflix-style subscription service specifically for indie games, to support indie developers. It can be difficult for indie games to get discovered, prompting Jump’s company chief …

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Cloud gaming solutions have experienced a rocky start with some failing before gamers get a chance to experience them. Jump aims to succeed where its predecessors have not, offering a Netflix-style subscription service specifically for indie games, to support indie developers.

It can be difficult for indie games to get discovered, prompting Jump’s company chief Anthony Palma to tell Gamasutra of the hardship Kermdinger Studios encountered before the subscription service came to be. “We didn't even launch our game because we knew we wouldn't be able to sell enough to make it impactful.” Wanting to rectify this, Jump has the aim of benefitting its users, who get instant, unlimited access to a library of highly regarded indie titles, while developers get a better shot at being discovered.

Jump entered its beta stage yesterday, which will run until the 24th of July. Once the platform is fully launched, it will cost $10 per month for access to the library, currently set to include between 60 and 100 games.

“Think of it like Netflix. You go in there now and you get these very specific categories, like indie horror movies with strong female leads. That's what we want to be able to do,” states Palma. “So we will be able to serve up not only games that you particularly will like, but we're also gonna be able to resurface games. So just because your game launched in month three and now its month 12, it's not going to be buried and unfindable.”

Regarding DLC, Palma added “We're not going to do any sales of DLC, no ads, this is a very pure experience. But to incentivize doing DLC, what we'll do is bump you back up into a top row that would say something like ‘New Content'… and so even if it's 12 months after launch, all of a sudden you're being discovered again by everybody. So we'll have ways for devs to bring their games back up into the queue, so they're not just going to get buried. And we're going to grow the content library very linearly, so hopefully our users will outpace our content, so there will be a chance for good revenue on the platform.”

VP of Content Cade Peterson revealed more in an interview with IGN, saying that “Because we’re doing a very curated catalogue, each of the games will get enough of their time in the sun to earn money. This adds a whole new stream of revenue [developers] wouldn’t have gotten before, because a lot of the games will be able to earn money from customers who either passed on buying it in the first place or have never heard of it.”

Currently, the beta is only downloadable for a Windows version, but the service will be available across Windows, Mac and Linux at launch.

KitGuru Says: This platform sounds perfect for streamers looking for diverse content for their viewers as well as indie enthusiasts out there. Will you be testing the service?

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Robotic leaps through exploding gases https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/harrison/robotic-leaps-through-exploding-gases/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/harrison/robotic-leaps-through-exploding-gases/#respond Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:00:14 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=125323 While we are able to pack tons of processing and memory capability into robots these days, there are still some skills that evade the non-sentient automatons. The ability to jump or leap is one of them. However, scientists at Harvard University are having breakthroughs that centre on exploding gases. KitGuru makes a leap of faith …

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While we are able to pack tons of processing and memory capability into robots these days, there are still some skills that evade the non-sentient automatons. The ability to jump or leap is one of them. However, scientists at Harvard University are having breakthroughs that centre on exploding gases. KitGuru makes a leap of faith to see what's what.

Harvard brought us Facebook, so we need to take it seriously as an institution.

Now Robert Shepherd and his crew have been giving the problem of ‘How can a robot leap into the air' some thought – and they seem to have managed a breakthrough.

First a little background – starting with a fundamental question: Why would you need a leaping machine?

Well sliding/gliding/walking and flying robots were all relatively easy. Either the systems were geared (literally) toward that single task or, in the case of flying, the plane/drone was already able to perform the function of flying and landing (mechanically), we just needed to replace the human angle with a computer.

Leaping is something else.

You can leap from anywhere to anywhere. The materials under you can change – same for angles and solidity etc. All in all, a far trickier experience. So why might it be useful?

Well Robert was thinking about situations like ‘Search and Rescue' where the searching has to be ‘up close and personal' at ground level. In these situations, you need the ability to get over obstacles. Humans take the ‘leaping stuff' for granted, but it's incredible difficult for a machine.

And, even once you work out the intelligence and programming needed – what's the mechanism?  Robert's team spent a good deal of time and money looking at a pneumatic system to replicate what animals so with muscles, but found that it was slow and cumbersome.

Combustion, as any fan of the Die Hard series will tell you, can blow objects from here to there in an instant. Nice.

Robert's solution is to deliver a small dose or oxygen and methane to the place where an explosion is needed – then ignite it to achieve ‘leaping androids'. A bit like the process that happens inside a combustion engine, which drives the pistons. To make it work, however, there needed to be soft silicon flaps controlling the process and his team were not sure if it would survive.

While the process can help achieve ‘walking', it was decided that leaping should come first, because if anything would make this system fail – it would be a series of high pressure explosions.

At the time of writing, the team has successfully managed to get a robot to jump at the equivalent of 4 metres a second – plus the leap itself only raises the overall temperature of the robot by 1 degree per leap for a short period of time – which seems very manageable.

The US Army promised that leaping robots would be used to simulate the migration pattern of bunny wunnies

.

KitGuru says: It still feels like science fiction, but in the future we can see the applications in (a) search and rescue, (b) checking extremely dangerous enemy territory when the ground is uneven and (c) as a terrifying automated killing machine that's deployed instead of Marines. KitGuru wonders which one will generate the necessary funding fastest Vs which one will we be ‘sold' as the primary purpose.

Comment below or in the KitGuru forums or join us over on Facebook.

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Youtube struggles in the Red Bull Stratos jump aftermath https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/youtube-struggles-in-the-redbullstratos-jump-aftermath/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/youtube-struggles-in-the-redbullstratos-jump-aftermath/#respond Sun, 14 Oct 2012 18:53:28 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=111721 As over seven million people watched Felix Baumgartner jump from the edge of Earth's atmosphere as part of the Red Bull Stratos mission, Youtube began to crawl. Since then it's struggled to stay functional, a very rare thing for the site which is used to massed traffic. It's still usable at this point, half an …

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As over seven million people watched Felix Baumgartner jump from the edge of Earth's atmosphere as part of the Red Bull Stratos mission, Youtube began to crawl. Since then it's struggled to stay functional, a very rare thing for the site which is used to massed traffic.

Youtube Down
Those attempting to view videos on the site received this message more often than not during the jump

It's still usable at this point, half an hour or so after the event, but the sheer scale of the number of people watching the jump and its aftermath shows how the medium of watching world changing events has really turned a corner.

If you missed it, the press conference is set to begin shortly here.

KitGuru Says: We certainly know where we'll all be watching the first manned Mars mission.

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