Google Stadia

[DANGERMAN]

this is in reaction to reports that Google were selling off the tech or something earlier in the week

[Maf]

I read that Google were de-prioritizing it or something. Essentially not considered a focus for them anymore. I think this is the final year of Stadia. 

[AndyKurosaki]

It’s been dead in the water for a long time now. Absolutely no surprise at all. 

[one-armed dwarf]

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378713/google-stadia-shutting-down-game-streaming-january-2023

 

Google shutting down stadia, but in a surprising turn of good faith stadia purchases are being refunded

[shinymcshine]

The demise of Stadia felt rather inevitable, but sounds like they are at least doing a decent thing by offering refunds.

[DANGERMAN]

I think the most striking thing about this news is that it's come completely out of the blue and no one could have predicted it

[HandsomeDead]

They seemed to just forget about it after launch there was nothing they did to entice anyone.  How they didn't offer a Game Pass type deal, which is probably essential for a streaming service, is baffling.

[one-armed dwarf]

I thought they did do that

 

What could be a factor also is google have such a terrible reputation for setting up projects and sunsetting them in around 18-24 months or so. Stadia lasted longer than that but both buyers and developers aren't going to feel confident signing on for a platform with that inbuilt reputation.

 

Anyway, the path forward for game streaming is as a part of a service, not the whole thing imo. I don't think the imperfections with this kind of product will ever be solved, unless mobile ISPs get extremely generous with their data packages all of a sudden.

[HandsomeDead]

No, I'm sure they sold games individually, and at the same RRP as physical and downloads, for access to a server.  So silly.

[shinymcshine]

I think Stadia Pro was their games subscription service ~£10/mth  (a la Gamepass).

[DANGERMAN]

yeah, I got a free version with my TV for a few months, and that's got games free with it

[HandsomeDead]

Huh, when I heard it talked about they never mentioned access.  Was it a decent library? I still assume it wasn't everything 

[DANGERMAN]

honestly, when I last looked it felt like there was only about 15 games on there total, but maybe that's just what the app was showing me

[DisturbedSwan]

I think they gave up on it before ever really giving it a chance to be honest, easy to say in hindsight but they should’ve not announced anything before they had some big AAA games from their few Google Game Studios (all closed now) to launch with.

 

I was a day 1 adopter but never really used it all that much beyond the first 2-3 months to be honest, most of the stuff on there was ports of PS4/XB1 games I’d already played, the one exclusive I did play and finish was Gylt, which I really enjoyed as a more cartoony Silent Hill almost. But it was a smaller title and not a flagship release the service needed.

 

Overall, it needed some proper commitment and money spent on it in terms of investment in studios, buying some timed exclusives and patience from Google and they never wanted to give it any of that. 
 

From my experience of the service, it was excellent and I never had any issues from latency or all that jazz, everything ran superbly and looked as good if not a little better than the last gen systems at the time. 
 

But yeah, an unmitigated disaster that was doomed to fail from the beginning thanks to Google not wanting to dive into its funds as much as it should’ve done and the world just not really wanting or being ready for a streaming service. 
 

I sold all my stuff for it aside from the controller back in 2020 and have never really thought about it since.

[one-armed dwarf]

I just don't think they had any partners interested in working with them tbh. I don't think google would have been able to fix that

 

I can't imagine that Samurai Showdown's decision to be a timed stadia exclusive did that game any favours. It's just a limiting platform if streaming is the only option

 

It's a matter of time anyway I think until steam or epic get into cloud gaming. Probably steam first as they've got a pretty good handheld to deliver that now. Well, I don't know how good the wifi chip is in the current iteration, probably isn't great.

[shinymcshine]

Baldurs Gate 3 was the one game that would have swayed me to get a Stadia, but it's been in early access for ages (which didn't appeal to me), with no full release date, so that one big game will never actually appear, in full, on the Stadia.

 

So I guess that Stadia has proved the tech is there for streamed gaming, so given their catalogue, if MS wanted to ditch their hardware they could go down that route - I suppose it depends on whether the infrastructure cost to support streamed gaming makes it more viable than the cost/profit that's in console sales.

[DANGERMAN]

I honestly think we're a long, long way away from streaming being viable as a gaming platform. Not from the tech side so much, more from the uptake side, I just don't see you getting people onboard which has always been Stadia's problem.

 

We'll see, fwiw I think Microsoft throwing it in with GP is one of the better ways, they'd need to really start pushing that you can then pick up where you left off on your phone or whatever

[AndyKurosaki]

This was dead on arrival. Before it launched, several videos online detailed Google’s track record of sacking stuff off. So they were never going to be in this for the long haul. 
 

While it’s a good idea in concept, we’re a long way off from everyone being able to use it. While some may have the suitable internet capability to do it, not everyone does. 
 

And when’s the last time you saw any ads, or promotion for Stadia? I’ve seen fuck all about it for absolutely ages. 
 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Saw this old tweet while reading through tweets of developers frustrated at google throwing months/years worth of their work away (how can any game dev work with google after this)

 

It's a shame they couldn't build the platform as more of a niche service. Players playing with controller might not feel the impact of latency as much but it is incredibly noticeable with mouse and keyboard, which I noticed when I tried Destiny on it. It was awful.

 

But I bet Disco Elysium would be awesome on it. 

[HandsomeDead]

Another game at the time was Mortal Kombat 8, another game where latency was going to be an issue.  Its just the way they went about selling it to people threw up so many concerns and became the focus.

 

At this point I can only think of it being an app on devices that will need some pushing.  Maybe there already was but I guess you gotta get people talking about it.  Some heavy hitting exclusive games would help.