Company

General
Affiliates
Retailers
Publishers & Developers
Technical

What is Gaikai?
Gaikai is a technology that lets gamers play the latest state-of-the-art video games instantly on any web browser, mobile or internet-connected device. No game to download or install. Just click and play instantly. Our open cloud platform lets publishers brand their own cloud (powered by Gaikai) and deliver their current games to places never possible before.: How do I pronounce Gaikai? What does it mean?
GAIKAI (pronounced "guy-kai") is a Japanese word that loosely translates to "Open Ocean". Imagine you are in the middle of the ocean, it’s a vast open space with infinite directions to go and explore. We feel that way about our technology. Interestingly everything in GAIKAI has Japanese names, every technology, system, server design, even some employees!: Is this Gaming-on-Demand?
Think of it as Gaming-Cloud-on-Demand. Our partners can now brand and offer their own instant “gaming-on-demand” service using our global cloud and technology.: Is Gaikai's technology limited to video games?
Absolutely not! Any software that can run on a PC can now instantly appear everywhere using the technology. We just started with high-end 3D video games as that was the biggest technical challenge.: Where do I download Gaikai from?
That's the best part: you don't. There's no special Gaikai program to download then install. Playing a game on Gaikai is as easy as watching a video on YouTube. How? We chose to support web technologies, like Flash, Java, Silverlight, HTML5 Etc.: I've forgotten my Gaikai password?
If you are one of our Partners or Affiliates and have forgotten your password, please get in touch with us via our Contact Page.: How can I provide suggestions or feedback?
Please visit our Contact Page to get in touch, and we'll be sure to consider your suggestions. We made this service for people like you and our team really appreciates your feedback!: Are there any job openings at Gaikai?
Our most recent job listings can be found in our Careers section.: Can we sell our service to Gaikai?
Please email us at services@gaikai.com, we promise to reply if there's a match with a service we need.: Where do I get Gaikai support?
Our online support section is "Coming Soon". In the meantime please just use the Contact Page section of this website.: Where do I get support for games?
While we are all gamers, we'd don't do customer support for games. It's best you approach the customer support team at the publisher that made the game.: How can I opt-out of email newsletters?
At the bottom of our newsletters there is a link that you can click to "Unsubscribe". If you have any issues, please send an e-mail to: support@gaikai.com: I have a question that's not answered here?
Please check the tabs above for more answers: "Affiliates", "Retailers" etc.: Do I have to register to use Gaikai?
No we don't require any registration to play, we have been working hard to keep the friction to an absolute minimum.: When and how do games appear?
Our advertising sales team adds demo campaigns constantly, each publisher or retailer generally has specific rules about when, where and how game demos should appear. The #1 way to get lots of great demos appearing on your site is if we can demonstrate that your visitors like to buy games after trying them. Your site will automatically rise up in our advertising rankings.: Do you sell games on Gaikai.com?
No that's up to our publisher and retailer partners. We are a technology these companies use to let you try their products instantly for free. Please do support our partners and buy from them!: Can you stream full games as well as demos?
Yes, Gaikai can easily stream full games. If you'd like to see your favorite game on our service, please contact the publisher of that game to let them know you'd like to play their games on Gaikai!

How do we add Instant Games to our website?
Simply sign up on our affiliates sign-up page.: How easy is it to add Gaikai's technology onto our site?
It usually just takes a few lines of JavaScript code, requiring just a basic, working knowledge of HTML.: Can we get paid for hosting games on our site?
Yes. Initially we want to see that you have traffic interested in buying games (better than average). If that's the case, then we offer you an affiliate split of the revenue.: What will it cost me to join the Gaikai Affiliate Network?
There's no charge to participate.: How can I earn the highest possible commission?
To get the most games played it's best to add Gaikai to the footer of the site, so all traffic is considered. You can also write about a certain demo you are impressed by and drive your traffic to it. If your users buy plenty of games from our partners, we will raise your commission and will prioritize your site for more games.: How do I track my sales and commissions?
Once you become a paid affiliate you will receive monthly earnings reports with a remittance. Soon you will be able to track and manage your earnings through the official Gaikai Dashboard. (You will be emailed a link once it's live.): What if an Affiliate triggers fake demos?
We want you to generate gamer traffic legally. To protect our advertisers, if we notice fraud or receive spam complaints associated with a website, the account will be immediately terminated and the URL will be permanently banned without pay.

Does Gaikai charge a commission?
No Gaikai simply charges for the network time to run demos, you keep 100% of your revenue and you keep all your players and customers.: How can retailers benefit from using Gaikai?
Firstly, don’t let yourself become the only retailer without live game demos on your site! If someone clicks your BUY button, then they never need to hear about Gaikai. We care about all the people that DON’T click your BUY button (the majority of your visitors), before they leave the page we try to get then to try the product. Our gamer surveys show that trying a game is the #1 way to trigger a buy decision.: Does Gaikai sell games?
No we empower retailers to sell more games. Gaikai is a service and is currently the only way to place professional state-of-the-art games instantly playable on your web store.: How can Retailers increase their Gamer traffic?
If you are a recognized retailer, you can easily do an exclusive game demo deal with a publisher, powered by Gaikai. That demo on your site will guarantee you increased traffic. Just by adding a mix of Gaikai powered games we normally see a lift between 300% and 500% on traffic depending on how much we promote together. Gaikai also has an affiliate network, so you can place demo links all over the internet and drive all those customers back into your shopping cart.

Why use Gaikai for video game trials and demos?
Our objective is to dramatically increase the amount of people that are currently trying your products. To do that we had to make it completely painless, we’ve managed to get your games playing with no downloads and no .EXE files. All our survey data shows that the #1 way to get gamers to make a buy decision is to try your products. So we work with you to tune your demos to deliver the absolute maximum sales possible.: Can you stream full games as well as demos?
Yes, Gaikai can stream full games however this is not a part of our “game demo” service. To stream full games, you simply buy Gaikai cloud capacity based on the number of instances you wish to have permanently available for your gamers. To your customers, you now you have your own Cloud Gaming service, we just take care of all of the heavy lifting.: Where do the players come from?
You can immediately add Gaikai to all your websites, microsites, blog sites, partner sites, fan sites, even Facebook. That traffic can then play without any acquisition cost. Retailers are already adding Gaikai, so you will have instant access to all of their traffic. The only “special” rule with retailers is they get to close the sales if they find the buyers. If you wish Gaikai to supply new players, we do that via our affiliate network for a slightly increased charge. If you wish to use your current advertising strategies like Google Banners, you can drive them with one click right into a Gaikai game experience on your website.: How do you charge?
We have a couple of methods of payment. You can either pay for the time the gamers play or if you wish to keep it simple we just charge a set amount per demo.: How do we get our games on the Gaikai network?
To start, email us at publishers@gaikai.com. To make it easy for us to see the game, please include a link to a trailer and/or gameplay footage. You must own the worldwide digital distribution rights for a game to have it added to our network.: How does Gaikai work for free-to-play games?
Gaikai drastically reduces the cost of acquisition for players of free-to-play games. Clearly getting them to play your game is critical and there's no faster or easier way to experience your game than by using our service.: What genres work best with Gaikai's technology?
All Genres work on our service. Pretty soon you'll see links to every genre on this site so you can give them a try.: Can we use Gaikai for conducting beta tests of our games?
Absolutely. You can put your game in front of thousands of testers, launched instantly from your invite email. Because we don't transmit any code you remain in complete control as there's been no actual code release. There's also no patching issues as they all play the version in the cloud that you are in complete control of.

My Demo isn't working! Help!
Step 1: BROWSER / PLATFORM
We test Gaikai on PC, Mac, Linux in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. We can't guarantee other browsers yet.

Web browser updates in Chrome can sometimes interrupt a demo from loading: Click the wrench toolbar in upper right. Select About Google Chrome. See if the browser is in the middle of an update. Relaunch if necessary.

Step 2: POP UP / AD / SCRIPT BLOCKERS
Make sure that GAIKAI is allowed to run on any pop-up / ad / script blocker that you have enabled.

Step 3: CONNECTION / BANDWIDTH
Make sure you have an open internet connection (not VPN, proxy, etc.)
Using a wired connection may result in a better connection than a wireless connection. Close any applications that can eat up your available bandwidth (Dropbox, Outlook, BitTorrent...)

Step 4: FLASH
Make sure you have the latest version of Flash:http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Step 5: JAVA
Make sure you have the latest version of Java: http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp

Step 6: COOKIES / CACHE
If your browser is being grumpy, clear Cookies that might have been corrupted, and clear your cache data.

Step 7: SUPPORT
Still having problems? Contact Us for support! We are more than happy to help!: I'm outside the US and Europe...
Currently Gaikai servers outside the US and Europe are being used for publisher testing. When this changes we will notify you in our Newsletter.: How do I test the quality of my Internet connection?
Bandwidth is important for Gaikai but network quality is even more important as it can impact your gameplay. Network quality is often referred to as "Jitter". To find out how silky smooth your internet connection is click here:http://www.pingtest.net: Do I need to buy a fast 3D computer, or any other special hardware?
Nope. All you need is a web browser running the latest version of Flash and Java. In fact, Gaikai makes it possible to play resource-intensive 3D games on devices never before possible, including laptops, netbooks, tablets ... even smartphones and other mobile devices. We run the games on our ultra high-end servers stuffed with the latest, greatest hardware, so the only requirement from your computer is that it can display full-screen video nice and fast.: Do I need a lot of bandwidth?
GAIKAI uses something called "stream-shaping" to give you the best experience possible with the internet bandwidth you have. We love 5+ megabits, but many demos will still work down around 3 megabits. You can approximate the speed of your connection using websites like http://www.speedtest.net, however, this measures the speed of your connection only to their servers, so the speed to other websites will vary, and the speed to Gaikai’s service will vary. That said, it’s a good test to get a general feeling for the speed of your connection.: My computer is very old, can I still use Gaikai?
Yes! To be clear, Gaikai does not run any games ON your computer, they all run on our computers in our data centers and we deliver the experience to you in realtime. Think of it like watching a movie, however you are in control.: Do you support Linux gamers?
Of course. Gaikai works on any Linux version, as long as the official Adobe Flash and Sun's Java Virtual Machine plugins are installed in your browser.: Does GAIKAI work on mobile phones?
We are making custom clients for mobile devices including phones and tablets. We have been demonstrating the technology on tablets and mobile devices since CES 2011. We will announce them on this site as they become publically available.: What is Latency?
We think of latency as any feeling of Lag or Delay when playing a video game. If you pressed jump and a second later your character jumped, that would be one second latency. To make games feel great, we need to make sure the distance between our servers and you is as close as possible so we've invested millions of dollars into placing our servers in data centers all over the world. (We launched into 24 data centers and add more every few months.) You can be certain that we will keep this up (along with some cool programming tricks) which means over time latency will become almost non-existent.: What version of Adobe Flash do I have installed?
Here's a quick link to find out: http://www.playerversion.com/ If you don't have Flash installed, go here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/: What version of Java am I running?
Click here to find out: http://javatester.org/version.html The version will appear in a pink box. If you don't have it installed, just go here: http://www.java.com/en/: Do you support HD?
We do. 480p and 720p are easily accessible by many internet connections. However, for 1080p a user must have a higher bandwidth connection in order to experience it at an optimal level.: Does Gaikai support expansions? Mods? Controllers?
Yes, yes, and yes. Many of our demos currently offer gamepad support. It's easy for us to offer games with all expansion packs pre-installed. There's no need for the players to install anything themselves. We offer full support of PC controllers (joypads, joysticks, steering wheels, guitars etc.) If you are a controller manufacturer and want to be Gaikai certified, please feel free to email us for more information at: controls@gaikai.com.: Does Gaikai work on MacBook Air?
Yes! If you are using Mac OSX 10.7 Lion, you will need to enable java by following these steps: Step 1: In Finder, click on "Go" in the menu, then "Utilities" in the submenu. Step 2: Double click on the "Java Preferences" icon. Step 3: In the General tab, place a checkmark in the box labeled "Enable applet plug-in and Web Start applications.": I'm on the YouTube experience... where is the link?
The YouTube experience is currently available in the United States (it will be coming to Europe soon!) We do care about gamers across the world and will be enabling many new game experiences with partners globally. If you are on a high speed internet connection in the US and don't see a link, please check if you are blocking cookies. If you still have trouble, check out the basic troubleshooting tips (My Demo isn't working! Help!): How can I reduce lag in cloud gaming?
Gaikai has been independently verified to having the lowest latency interactive cloud network in the world. We have more data centers close to gamers and have beaten our nearest competitor in 25 out of 26 markets according to Gomez.com. Our team of experts is constantly working on making Gaikai as responsive as possible. Most players on our service report that they do not see any latency. Here are a few tips if you are seeing lag in your experience: * Close other applications that are consuming large amounts of bandwidth (downloads, torrents, video streaming, or multiple devices sharing your connection). * Try switching from a wireless to a wired connection. * Make sure you are not running your computer in power save mode. Many laptops automatically switch to lower performance settings when unplugged. * Attempt to connect outside of peak hours for your ISP.