OnLive Brings On New Executive Chairman And Launches New Cloud Gaming Features

OnLive is still trying to bring gaming to the cloud despite a rocky last couple of years. Today, the company announced significant new services and the appointment of a new Executive Chairman.

Meet Mark Jung, the new Executive Chairman of OnLive. He is the co-founder and former CEO of IGN where he took the company public in 2000, then private in 2003 and eventually lead its sale to News Corp. in 2005. While at News Corp., he served as the COO of Fox Interactive Media which put him over internet properties like Myspace, IGN Entertainment, FoxSports.com and others.

Jung joins other recent hires at Onlive including Carrie Holder, new VP of Business Development, and Rick Sanchez, OnLiveā€™s product portfolio as VP of Product and Marketing. Holder was formerly Director of Partner Management at Electronic Arts and Sanchez previously was VP of Playdom.com at Disney Interactive.

The company is also announcing the launch of two new cloud gaming features for its cloud gaming service.

With the CloudLift subscription service, OnLive is attempting to bring the convenience of cloud gaming to digital downloaded games. The service links select titles from a player’s game library to OnLive and automatically saves pertinant metadata. Then, when the player plays on a different PC or mobile device, the game resumes where it’s left off. CloudLift only works with select titles including Batman: Arkham Origins, The LEGO Movie Videogame, Saints Row IV and the indie title Type:Rider.

The other just-announced service, OnLive Go, is the cloud gaming’s first reach into the world of MMOs. OnLive brags that this new platform brings MMOs to mobile devices since OnLive’s servers handle all the processing.

In the summer of 2012, OnLive was all but dead. Deep in debt, the company released part of its staff and proceeded to reorganize. But the company weathered the storm despite watching its founder leave and is still attempting to reinvent the world of gaming.