While members of the video game industry and press are attending the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week and getting a chance to view the Independent Games Festival awards ceremony on the show floor, OnLive is giving you a chance to feel included, and this very fortunately involves playing games. As of today and until March 11, the 16 IGF nominees and honorable mentions are up for grabs for free on the OnLive service.
If you're interested in playing games previously awarded by IGF, OnLive will be discounting those by 75 percent on March 5, the first day of GDC. If that doesn't tide you over in waiting for Kotaku's coverage of everything you're missing at the show, perhaps offering said games at 30-minute free demos might be the cherry topping that does the trick.
OnLive emphasizes that their intention is to give gamers a chance to play independently made games with innovative experiences, which has the added benefit of increasing exposure for the developers responsible for them during one of the more lauded industry conferences. Meggan Scavio, Director of the Game Developers Conference (and one of our Power 40 members) echoes these statements:
Our mission has always been to give innovative indie titles the exposure and recognition they deserve. By partnering with OnLive and leveraging their cloud-gaming technology, we can take that exposure even further by putting these incredible indie titles in the hands of users across the US and UK.
If you haven't gotten around to trying Dear Esther or To The Moon even after all the raving accorded to them, it's about time you register for OnLive (if you haven't already) to check them out. OnLive will be monitoring how many Facebook "Likes" each game receives from you all, as well as how much play time is spent in the respective games. I'm betting steak dinner that the two won't align.
OnLive Announces Indie Showcase in Partnership With the Independent Games Festival [OnLive]