You might have heard of JUMP, a new service being billed as the "Netflix of Indie Games."
But what is JUMP?
How does it work?
And is it worth it to you as a gamer?
JUMP is a monthly subscription service, meaning you pay $10 a month every month in order to
use it.
In return for your money, you are given an account that allows you to login to the JUMP
application, where you can then play whatever games are on the service as much, or as little,
as you'd like.
Netflix really is a good analogy for this.
Unlike other streaming game services, such as OnLive or Playstation Now, JUMP has slightly
different technology under the hood.
As opposed to streaming the game to you, and therefore adding potential latency issues
to your gameplay, JUMP instead sends small chunks of the entire game to your PC.
The browser application then sees that as a 'fully installed' game, reading it no differently
than if you had downloaded the full title and installed it yourself.
Though there are some serious questions to be asked about how exactly this system works,
since you can play games through a browser without the application and browser storage
is limited to 81.92 kilobytes.
While I won't delve into this any further, it does lead me to question that they're really
doing what they say they're doing.
This also means that your own hardware handles the game, so you can't stream more demanding
games to your PC than it can handle.
This isn't a way to play the newest most blistering AAA title at Ultra without upgrading.
It also means that as long as you have the next chunk of your game downloaded, you're
ready to go, though if you do go offline you won't be able to play after a certain point.
It doesn't immediately log you off the service when you go offline, so in theory it's not
Always Online.
However, there's no downloading a game for a plane or road trip, or preloading an entire
game if you're on bad internet, so in reality it absolute is Always Online.
In fact, in my own experience, everytime I purposefully took myself offline the entire
JUMP application would just crash after about 20 seconds.
JUMP has a somewhat storied history.
The developer, Kermdinger Studios, was a indie developer who produced two unreleased titles,
Stunt Runner and IllumiCube.
IllumiCube was a contest entry in the Intel RealSense App Challenge 2014, though it did
not win any placements.
Stunt Runner was a Unity title with a failed Kickstarter in September 2014, even after
being shown at PAX PRIME on the Indie Mega Booth.
It did manage to be Greenlit on Steam in December of 2014.
As was very common at the time, Kermdinger offered free copies of their game if you would
vote Yes for the Greenlight.
After doing some number-crunching, they realized that this game would never recoup the investment
that they had made into the game so far.
Steam games have been steady declining in average price, and in average ownership since
2013.
An average game would cost $9.99 and sell roughly 165,000 copies in 2013.
By 2014 that number had already decreased to $8.99 and 44,000 copies.
This was the beginning of Steam becoming overly saturated.
Whereas in 2013, only 30 or 40 games were released every month, by 2014 you were seeing
200 a month.
This has only gotten worse, as today in 2017 an average game will cost $5.99 and sell only
4,000 copies, and over 500 games are released every month.
Seeing this trend, Kermdinger started a new project called Boondogl.
Planned to launch in Quarter 4 of 2015, Boondogl was designed to be a curated digital game
subscription service.
This is what is now known as JUMP.
Originally envisioned as a streaming service with web-based exports of developer titles,
Boondogl's entire system and JUMP's current model are identical with the exception of
this change from web-exports to chunk exchange.
Now this is an important distinction and it's the reason why JUMP 'works.'
Other streaming services like PSNow render the game remotely, on a server somewhere in
the world, and then broadcasts that gameplay to you.
Imagine Twitch but you have a controller and you're the player.
This means your personal PC specs don't matter, you can have a potato and still play Crysis
on Ultra.
However, the inputs from your controller have to travel to that server, the server responds
and sends it back, meaning there is always latency in the input.
Pixel perfect is impossible in this environment.
With JUMP, the game is played on your PC.
The next question, then, is are the games worth playing in the first place?
JUMP is a curation service, first and foremost.
It uses three metrics to determine if a title should be available.
First, if the game has won any awards.
The second is its rating on Metacritic or Steam, and third is if the game is a quote-unquote
"Runaway Seller."
According to Anthony Palma, the CEO of Jump, in an interview with Siliconera said "If it
sold a million copies regardless of the other two, it's a game people wanted to play.
It's an objective way to put a line in the sand and say this is the kind of quality of
game we want on the platform."
This curation is something that gamers, specifically Steam users, have complained about for years.
Since Steam opened the floodgates, and Gabe Newell has repeatedly said that Valve has
no intention of barring poor quality.
Only of trying to surface it less.
Steam users who have been on the service for years often nostalgically complain about 'the
good ol days' when Valve itself only allowed the top quality games on their platform.
Developers also complain because with the flood of titles coming to the platform every
month, no individual game has a chance to surface to the top without a huge marketing
budget or a fanatically rabid fanbase.
This led to grey-market activities like offering game keys for greenlight votes, or black-hat
activities like creating free steam keys and running multiple copies, harvesting steam
trading cards for profit, OR pricing the game unrealistically high, and selling those steam
keys directly to bundle sites so they can market the bundle as being 95% off.
It's easy to see, then, why a curated service that only adds a small number of games every
month and which verifies that those games are--in fact--of high quality would be valuable.
As of today, there are 63 titles available on JUMP.
If you signed up right now for a 14 day free trial, you could play all 63 immediately.
After hitting play, there's a short download and you're off.
However, are those games really of a higher quality?
Of the 63 games available, only 5 are overwhelmingly positive on Steam.
That's around 8%.
The way Steam ranks it's reviews is a bit of a mystery, but can be assumed to generally
match the system on screen.
So, where do most of the games on JUMP sit?
In the "Very Positive" category.
This means they are 8/10 to 9/10 games.
This is actually a remarkably high average.
It means that generally speaking the games that you'll play are well regarded by most
of the people who played it.
What's most interesting, however, is the category that isn't shown.
The Category of "None."
These are games that didn't have enough reviews to get a category, or were never available
on Steam, and therefore have No Rating.
This category of JUMP games is almost 30%.
And the titles in that category are generally unheard of titles.
Or, in terms of titles that are more known, they have previously been heavily discounted
as high at 75% off.
In the less known category, that goes as high as 95% off.
Additionally, over 40% of these "NONE" category games have previously been available absolutely
free.
Many of them still are.
You can google the game, and find a completely free downloadable version on GameJolt or Itch,
and play it without ever paying for a JUMP subscription.
I have no serious concerns about this.
I believe a developer should be able to monetize their titles, and I understand that many indies
cannot reliably charge money for a game if they want anyone to play it.
Even a pricetag of $1 could mean that they do not make a single dollar, whereas many
gamers are willing to play a game for free, and that kind of success can lead to later
games that do provide a living to the developer.
However, I have to question why anyone should pay to play a free game.
Already at least one of these games has been pulled from all free download sites and is
now available exclusively on JUMP, and I wouldn't be surprised if that continues with all the
other developers.
Why give the milk away for free if you can force them to rent the cow.
In total, over 15% of the entire JUMP library is free or previously free titles, only one
of which is as high as "Very Positive."
Over half of the entire library is titles that had very reviews, or the dreaded "Mixed"
reviews, or no reviews at all.
This seriously calls into question, for me, how stringently they stick to their 3 core
principles on adding a game to their library.
It unquestionable that many of these never won an award, aren't rated highly on metacritic
or steam, and certainly didn't sell millions of copies.
Some of these are fairly recent, and so it's understandable that they wouldn't have the
time to build a reputation.
To have won awards, or achieved critical or commercial success.
However, almost 80% of the games are at least one year old.
Half of them are two or more years old, with 10% being titles released in 2013.
In fact, of all the games on the library, well over half of the 2017 titles fall into
this 'No Rating' category.
This means that you are primarily getting much older titles, or getting unknown titles
without any serious critical response.
The highest rated titles are from 2014, 2014, 2016, 2016, and 2016, respectively.
And, with a single exception, all five have all been available for around $1.
In fact, when talking about the price of the games available on JUMP, they seem to be either
very inexpensive titles, or titles that have been in bundles and on sale for much less
than their original sales price.
When we take the average amount these games have been on sale for, it is over 60% off
ON AVERAGE.
Over 40% have seen sales over 70% off, and almost 20% have seen sales of at least 90%.
These are not premium titles.
The average retail price of a game on JUMP is just over $7.50.
But the average sale price of these titles is just over $2.50.
This just confirms that you shouldn't expect to be seeing AAA titles when you sign up for
JUMP.
With over 60 titles available, however, this does mean you're getting a library worth ovewr
$160 for $10 a month.
If you plan to play all of them, that's a pretty good deal on the face of it.
Really, though, it comes down to how much time you're getting from these titles.
Time is very important to JUMP.
Similar to Netflix, Kindle Unlimited, YouTube RED, developers are paid based on the amount
of time you spend in the game.
JUMP is understandably reticent to give hard numbers, but from their Boondogl press release
and comments made by JUMP staffmembers, it's anywhere from 25-60 cents per hour.
Obviously, if no one signs up for JUMP that's lower, and if they get swamped it goes up.
It's all based on achieving a large number of players and a smaller number of games.
For the user, however, it's a question of "how many hours am I getting for my $10 a
month."
While some games have a time-to-beat of as high as 12 hours, half of the games are under
2 hours to complete, and the average amount of time is 2 hours and 30 minutes.
If you signed up today, you would get a $160 library that has roughly 158 hours of gameplay
available.
Again, that's not a terrible proposition.
The problem comes, personally, when we look to the future.
JUMP plans to add between 6 and 10 new games a month.
Based on these current statistics, that's between $16 and $26 in value in sale prices,
and between 15 and 23 hours of gameplay.
Still not an absurd amount of money per hour, to be sure, but definitely not a huge discount
for the user.
Assuming you play 4 or 5 of them for 2 or 3 hours a piece, it's not any different than
if you'd just bought them on sale on Steam.
Extrapolating that out for a year, and you'll have paid $120 for a $425 library of roughly
160 games, with around 400 hours of gameplay.
After two years, $240 for a $680 library of 255 games with 640 hours of gameplay.
Roughly one hour a day, for about $0.38 an hour.
Of course, that leads into the final issue with JUMP.
You cannot find out what games are in the JUMP library without signing up.
There's no list of games you can look at and say "I would play these games, and therefore
it's worth it to me."
In fact, many of the games on this list were already in my library from various bundles.
Instead, you have to sign up, and hope that you like the games available.
Games like Stunt Runner, from Kermdinger Studios.
The value of JUMP seems to be for gamers who love indie titles, and are willing to play
anything and everything just for the experience.
If you don't play them, and you don't play everything, you're not getting a better value
then buying the games outright.
If you only play one title a month, you're absolutely better off just buying that title
alone and not subscribing for the others.
In this way, it's similar to the Humble Monthly.
You have no idea what games are going to come next month.
You might get games you already have or have no intention or interest in ever playing.
Unlike Humble, there's a very good chance you'll get a game that almost nobody's ever
heard of, that was available for free, or that simply nobody purchased or played.
For JUMP to succeed, they need people to sign up on both sides.
They developers with interesting and unique titles, or even their own Netflix Originals,
which is obviously why Stunt Runner is available.
They also need users who want to play these unknown indie titles.
Unfortunately, they're also stuck in a position where it is more profitable to release a game
on Steam and then after several years of slowly lowering your sale price and getting as much
money from the Steam community as possible, only then releasing the title to JUMP.
This means that the only titles that are going to come to JUMP are either older titles, or
poorly selling titles.
We'll never see the next great indie smash game showing up JUMP while there's still an
audience buying it on Steam.
That really leaves 2 very small, very niche audiences for this platform.
Users who are new to gaming and want to experience these older indie titles on the cheap, or
gamers who don't care about playing titles that are much older, or very inexpensive.
Because of this, it's very difficult for me to see a long-term success for JUMP.
And I certainly can't recommend it, though I find myself in the interesting position
of not being able to NOT recommend it either.
This is a service that is for you, if it's for you.
If you are that niche audience, there's really no reason not to try it out.
There is a 14 day free trial, and currently you could beat every single game on the platform
in that period of time if you were really devoted to it.
Additionally, I applaud JUMP for finding a solution that actually pays these developers
for the work they've put into making their games.
I'm also personally very interested in the VR titles they've said they'll be releasing
in the future, though those expectations are tempered by the fact that they will probably
be free or cheap VR games I might not be interested in.
In end, I just can't tell you whether or not you should jump on JUMP.
I want to give a shoutout to The Golden Bolt for recommending this topic.
He's another YouTuber and you can certainly check him out if you enjoy traditional game
reviews.
This topic is a bit outside of our usual wheelhouse, as we are primarily game critics.
However, this service is something that seems to be a major topic of conversation lately,
and since our primary goal at CryMor is to educate our viewers and provide information
for consumers who are trying to decide if they should or should not buy a game, this
felt like something of value to you.
I'd love to hear from you, let me know what you think about JUMP.
Have you tried it?
Is it something you're now interested in, or something you were interested in and no
longer are.
Where do you see the future of JUMP?
In the description you'll find a link to a PDF version of the spreadsheet I used that
has all of the games available on JUMP, along with the various calculations on Pricing,
Release Dates, Playtime, and more.
If you like it, like it, if you don't like it, don't like it.
If you did like it though, why don't you watch another one in the corner there, and as always,
we'll see you on the next one.
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