OnLive was kind of a big deal when it was announced. A lot of poeple used it and tried it. They "gave" some games for you to play for free and test it out. Also, Sony did a few things similar on Playstation but was never a huge success because of the technical implications.

I remember playing an OnLive demo of a (then recent) Mass Effect title. I was picky about both image quality and lag, and I was not in a top-tier city. I was very impressed! Unfortunately, the problems with the business model remained.