Google Stadia

Steam is partnering with GeForce NOW.

Stadia should just give up already.

Google's "overpromising" led to Stadia "disappointment," says RDR2 publisher: If you're paying $60 for a game, "are you really unwilling to buy a $300 console?"

Basically, people would rather spend the extra couple hundred bucks on a console that plays big content games than pay less for a console that just plays indie games. Big shock, I know.

While the Stadia did offer high end game content, it clearly was not enough.

Edited by Redmess on Jun 3rd 2020 at 7:52:50 PM

Honestly every potential market they were going after seemed to be covered. Want a cheaper console for certain indie titles? Get a Switch. Need something to play triple A titles on? Grab an older/cheaper PS 4/Xbox One. Only interest is in playing on your phone? Try out mobile games.

The moment the Stadia boss said that not only would games be the same price as everywhere else, but that he didn't even know why games on the service would be cheaper? That basically confirmed the whole project was dead in the water, because less expensive titles were really the only angle they could have had to stand out.

Really, Stadia's systematic issues seemed to be obvious from the beginning to everyone except those at Google.

Edited by BorneAgain on Jun 3rd 2020 at 2:05:39 PM

Don't forget that to actually use Stadia, you need a decent Internet connection. And if you have a connection capable of getting the most out of Stadia (especially in America, where apparently hard data caps are still a thing?), you can probably afford a console or a reasonable PC.

Plus, they're selling the games piecemeal. You cannot run a streaming service on individual purchases. As I've been arguing all through this thread, it often helps to consider the physical structure of the Internet. Bear in mind Richard Stallman's maxim that "There is no such thing as 'the cloud' - only other people's computers." The Stadia games live on computers in Google's buildings. Those computers run by the flow of electrons through copper and silicon, and extract some energy from those electrons to generate a flow of photons which delivers the video feed to the customers' computer (or it might just send more electrons through a copper wire, but really, anyone interested in Stadia doesn't have ADSL). Those electrons cost money, and a streaming service requires that the operator essentially pay for the electrons needed to run the product rather than just use a few electrons to deliver the product to the customer and then let them pay for all the electrons they're using (and on a sidenote, with Stadia the customer is still paying for about the same number of electrons anyway, so it's less efficient). Streaming works for Netflix because they have a steady, regular income from monthly subscriptions that they use to pay for their own electrons. The Stadia model means that a one-time purchase compels the provider to pay for the sale infinitely ever after.

Also this comment from the Ars article is illustrative:

To go back to the topic of people loving digital distribution for convenience:

I'm not really a big "streaming" person (aside from watching You Tube videos). I do own a couple movies on Prime and my mom and I are currently watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix.

I prefer watching movies or TV shows on DV Ds, Blu-Rays, or even Laser Discs to watching them digitally, especially since servers can be quite crap.

Then again, I usually prefer to also keep my consoles at strictly "play games" and prefer to watch DV Ds or Blu-Rays on an actual DVD or Blu-Ray player, which I think is foreign to one of my friends (who was wondering why I don't use my PS 3 as a Blu-Ray player when I have an actual Blu-Ray player right by it. I do use my PS 4 as a Blu-Ray player but only because I don't have a Blu-Ray player in the usual area I play games in, whereas my PS 3 and 360 are in a separate room).

Basically, people would rather spend the extra couple hundred bucks on a console that plays big content games than pay less for a console that just plays indie games. Big shock, I know.

Stadia doesn't have much of an indie roster, to the point I'd seen it listed as a major problem. Mostly has a lot of slightly older AAA games

And those are on other platforms. So, no new hyped up titles or surprise hits.

Does Stadia have anything worthwhile they can call their own?

It currently has two exclusives according to Wikipedia, with one more coming TBA. They all look meh.

Any potentially good exclusives won't be coming out for years since Google is stupid only started a studio recently.

They also didn't offer any incentives to developers to make their games exclusive. From what I've seen, they did approach a few devs about some sort of exclusivity, but were in the mindset that of course people would want their games on Stadia, and were nonplussed when they weren't interested.

People complain about Epic's antics, but they at least give people a reason to put their game on the Epic Games Store.

More trainwrecking time.

The Stadia version of Cyberpunk 2077 is being delayed. Only the Stadia version — the other version are coming out on the planned date. Oh and GeForce Now will probably have it on launch day.

There was a source on CD Projekt Red's website but it's apparently gone now.

Every time this thread is updated , I expect the inevitable "Google pulls the plug" post.

I thought they already had, and I'm kind of shocked they haven't yet.

Google accidently uploaded a development build (specifically the E3 2019 demo version) of Ubisoft's God and Monsters to Stadia, to Ubisoft's displeasure

Edited by Ghilz on Jun 17th 2020 at 10:45:51 AM

I think the only thing that keeps Google from accepting defeat is its pride, remember how hard it tried to make Google+ fly despite no one wanting to use it?

At this point, this feels like a really cringy comedy.

I'm super curious as to how an old demo was lying around with Google and able to be leaked like that.

Regardless, it didn't help make Google look more competent.

I can think of several reasons really

1. Ubisoft gave google the demo so Google could make a proof of concept deployment to convince Ubisoft to use them for launches.
2. Ubisoft is already planning to release the game, and using test builds for Stadia integration.
3. Google has the build for other reasons (Ubisoft leveraging their cloud services for multiplayer servers or for Uplay) and it somehow got into the the Stadia team's hands. Heck this one can make sense because it's a total google move to pitch this as "Use our cloud infrastructure for server, and you can also use Stadia as a platform. Synergy!"

Edited by Ghilz on Jun 17th 2020 at 11:35:37 AM

Stadia has only been out for six months; I don't believe Google has pulled the plug on anything after less than a year.

Bloody Hell, only six months? It's been quite a year.

That's actually why I think that Stadia won't live beyond the year, if this year had been a normal one then it probably would have garnered some player base that might have encouraged developers to try designing for Stadia.

Unfortunately, this is the year of social distancing and lockdowns, and if I recall correctly the streaming services in general suffered due to the increase of demand, combine that with the economical recession that made its inner purchase requirement to actually play the games even more punishing and the deserved bad press it earned from notorious gamers like Angry Joe and you have a product that is going to suffer the same fate of the Virtual Boy.

Edited by raziel365 on Jun 18th 2020 at 10:44:30 AM

I'm not normally a Reddit user but I checked out r/stadia (it's the only place that Stadia users gather) and the community seems to be in deep denial about the platform.

Also I did a Google search for Stadia to see how many downloads the app currently has and the first thing that popped up was an ad for GeForce Now.

Edited by Karxrida on Jun 18th 2020 at 5:35:53 AM

I don't know if this has been said before, but the Stadia's commercial reminded me of the Atari Jaguar commercials you could find in youtube, which is not a good sign at all.

Wow you're right. I came across a Jaguar commercial and it's exactly like a Stadia ad.

I think when Google was doing the reveal they had a showcase of consoles that famously flopped like the Dreamcast and even Jaguar(?) as part of a history thing. It was oddly prophetic.

Edited by Karxrida on Jun 18th 2020 at 9:31:46 AM

Jaguar ads:

Stadia ad:

Yeah, I don't really... oh, wait, there it is.

I kinda liked that Doom commercial, not gonna lie.

The commercial that plays at the beginning of this video is what I saw earlier.

Edited by Karxrida on Jun 19th 2020 at 11:52:40 AM

So the Stadia version of NBA 2K21 seems to be based on the PS4/Xbone versions instead of being on par with the PS5/Xbox X versions.

I know nobody probably cares about that game and it's probably 2K just being shitty, but it sets a precedent that doesn't look good for Google.