We had a chance to sit down with Blake Lewin, creator of GameTap and vice president of product development and innovation for Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.) New Product Development, and he told us all about this new service. As a Gamer who loves SEGA, having the ability to play any SEGA game, especially since Saturn and Dreamcast games can be especially hard to find, is very exciting. Not to mention the vast library besides the SEGA games. GameTap largely celebrates the history of gaming as well as brings in the newer PC games. I will definitely be subscribing at launch.
How it Works
GameTap is a first-of-its-kind broadband entertainment network that offers games-on-demand plus original programming via a broadband connected PC. The service takes advantage of high-speed Internet connections to bring a large and growing library of arcade, past generation console and PC titles to its subscribers.
Navigating the GameTap library
To access GameTap, players first download and install Turner-developed client software that acts as a gateway to the GameTap library, much as many on-line music retailers allow access to song libraries. GameTap designers created the library as a multi-tiered space. Each tier holds a selected subset of the game collection. Tiers include “hot picks,” which are updated weekly, and user favorites. One tier organizes the games by genres; another arranges them by the platform on which the game first ran. A “search tier” provides look-up capabilities for the entire library.
Once selected, each title displays an associated “InfoCard” that displays year, platform, publisher, description, screen shot and bonus material, which can include classic commercials and original Turner programming. Also provided are: parental controls, and, if appropriate, top scores from the GameTap community.
Authentic game play
To recreate the original gaming experience on a PC, Turner integrated both licensed and developed software code that faithfully mirrors the functionality of everything from arcade machines to the home console. GameTap supports navigation and game play using both keyboard and mouse, as well as most USB peripherals.
When a subscriber first selects a game for play, it gets partially downloaded to his or her hard disk in encrypted form—accessible only via the GameTap client. Of course, download times vary according to the size of the original game. Some cartridge games consume less than 20 megabytes, downloading quickly. To reduce wait times, Turner employs secure caching technology that allows users to store downloaded games on their own computers, so that frequently played titles get retained for quick access.
The server side: live from Atlanta
GameTap is hosted in Turner’s Atlanta headquarters by the same team that delivers some of the Internet’s most visited properties, including CNN.com, NASCAR.com, CartoonNetwork.com, HBO.com, Money.com, PGA.com, TBS.com, and TNT.tv. Collectively, these sites serve more than 2.5 billion page views to more than 30 million users each month. Turner’s Internet infrastructure is augmented by AOL’s Internet backbone and video streaming services.
