Right idea. Possibly too soon so maybe the wrong time. But more likely just the wrong company and wrong strategy.
Gaming is not in Google's DNA and they lacked the will to make the required investments to break into the industry (this was clear when it shut down it's internal game studios)
They launched on the cusp of a new console generation with last gen tech. They made big claims about 4k/60 but in reality games performed on par with a PS4 Pro (which was about 3 years old at the time of Stadia's launch). They never updated the hardware after 9th generation consoles came out the following year.
They did not launch with a big exclusive AAA first party game. There was no killer app. No Halo, no Mario, no God Of War. They were totally reliant on third party publishers porting cross platform games over. The only people with a compelling reason to use it were those with fast internet but no console/PC because it wasn't better graphically than incumbents and had no major exclusive games.
Microsoft's GamePass in the cloud model (or something like it) is likely the one that will catch on. Netflix of gaming. Digital consumption is moving to all you can eat subscriptions. Google model was "own" games in the cloud. It's a bit like buying digital copies of movies vs Netflix/Disney+/HBO Max. The subscription model appeals to a wider market if it can be priced right.
As both a Stadia, and Steam Link+Controller user for years I can say this was/is not my experience. I'm able to play Steam link games (over my wired local network) without noticeable input lag, and Stadia (despite my crap Comcast connection) also ran decently. I also experimented with the Xbox streaming service and while usable at home, it was not usable on my LTE mobile connection.
Stadia was just too early, and was up against giants like Sony, MS and Nintendo not to mention gaming brands like NVIDIA. Heck even Amazon is playing in this arena and I can't imagine Apple is far behind if they see it working elsewhere.
I'll admit I have not used the Steam link streaming to an iOS/Android device wirelessly - I'm sure it's not great. I will also say that I cannot play FPS games with Steam Link+Keyboard+Mouse (even wired). Rocket League? Great. Broforce? Good. Skyforce? Awesome. Nintendo emulator? Surprisingly decent as most of those games are highly dependent on instant response..
I'm at the phase where I building exotic home infrastructure, and the latency through a variety of streaming mediums was insufficient. The games felt bad.
The technology itself was good, but I think Google underestimated the investment needed to go from zero to having an internal first party studio pumping out titles to attract casual gamers.
They probably asked themselves "are we that serious about gaming?" and the answer was no, so they shut it down.
I own a 2013 MBP. I reached the limit of dual booting a while ago, but still wanted to play new games without buying a new computer.
I subscribed to PlayStation Now, and got to play Spider-man for $12 per month and the cost of a controller. I knew going in that, like Netflix, I didn’t own the content and it might disappear.
I had a similar experience with Amazon’s service, where I played Watchdogs Legion for a few weeks. I used the PS4 controller.
I’ve been subscribed to Nvidia GeForce for sometime. I pay $4 per month (yay for legacy pricing) to have a high end machine for my casual gaming. My game selection is limited, but I own what I play. If I choose to build/buy a gaming PC, I’ll have games.
Stadia was flawed because I had to buy a new controller that was locked to Stadia, but games that are locked to Stadia, and subscribe to Stadia. That’s a lot of commitment just to _try_ a service. The idea of locking my game purchases to a single service was never going to fly for me.
Stadia could have been more successful if they adopted the models of Nvidia or Amazon, and just rented a machine in the cloud. The special controller can help decrease latency, but isn’t required.
Honestly I feel like it was Google's reputation that largely killed it.
Every time this came up the question would be, what happens when it shuts down since you had to buy games specifically for it.
That was also a problem for it, it didn't work with your existing library on steam or piggy back on something like Xbox Game Pass. They were trying to enter a market that already has many engrained players.
I think google could of made it work, but it would take 10 years with no shenanigans to get people to trust it.
Look at me, I hated the idea of a service like steam with a passion, hell it makes me nervous thinking of all my games, only playable at the whim of valve, but here I am, I buy all my games on steam now. Mainly because I trust them, it took about ten years before I bought my first game, but valve did not mess up, they kept to a simple straightforward honest service, and they have proven themselves an honest partner in my game purchases since. still sort of hate it, but it is so convenient.
But google does not think like that, they think that if something is not an instant success you throw it out and start over, no concept of growing a service. Also, google would have a hard time running an honest service, they are an advertising company.
As predicted in and seen as far back as 2021: [0] and even knowing that the rumours and reports of its impending shutting down were true despite the Stadia Twitter hopelessly denying it. [1] and then here we are, it is shutting down today.
So this comes as to absolutely no surprise. A complete failure for Google and saw this disaster years ago. Failing to get gamers on board even in the pandemic, means you have failed afterwards, even with a console shortage at the time.
I think it struggled because there was also a userbase that seemed personally offended by the offering, and needed to say so publicly and loudly, which sapped momentum for the product. Personally I think Google could have overcome that by bundling it with other offerings and making it ubiquitous. Definitely a lost opportunity.
The question was never “will it work well for someone” rather “will there really be enough someone’s it works well for that find it worth trying out and keeping”. This is squeezed on each end - on the casual by disinterest in trying a dedicated gaming service and on the traditional gamer end by an endless bevy of options and relatively common displeasure with remote gaming.
I had hopes it’d work out though but those died a while back when uptake stalled and the hype wave had already come down.
I loved playing Cyberpunk 2077 on this - what a great system for playing games. Especially if you didn't own a console. I am sad to see it go - I also played Red Dead Redemption 2 on it for the first time, what a great game. Great way to kill time in the early, early days of the pandemic.
Now that I have a 2019 MacBook Pro 16' with an AMD graphics card, I've migrated over but I won't have all the graphical power. Would have been a nice supplement to my gaming setup.
On an encouraging note though: Google did end up releasing a tool to turn the controllers into regular ol' Bluetooth controllers so that they don't turn into piles of e-waste.
What a shame, as someone who hasn't gamed since I switched to a mac laptop 15 years ago for dev reasons, it worked very well.
I beat Cyberpunk 2077, BL3, AC:Origins all on Stadia. I never once had to wait for a system or game update when I started a gaming session. I'm on google fiber and only very rarely experienced latency issues, the platform also had an "attack the spire" clone that I often played on my phone when I was away from the console. A couple of times I brought the controller and chromecast with me and gamed at other places, the whole setup was extremely portable.
They've refunded me what I spent, I wish I still had the platform though. It was definitely nice to be able to game again during the pandemic.
Anyone remember the late OnLive, what was the difference?
Content is king and Stadia had nothing but a mediocre list of third party games.
These tech companies think they can just jump right in because they’re experienced with cloud distribution, or other forms of media streaming and subscriptions. That’s why I don’t see Netflix Games as a solid contender. Being a game distributor is a whole different sector. Last time I looked, the game industry is larger than music and film combined.
Microsoft is the only one promising. They aren’t the best game distributor, cloud distributor, or most experienced with streaming services and subscriptions. But they’re the closest with all three combined.
For reference, imagine if a game leader like Nintendo jumped into this, they’d be fucked. A company so regressive they still use friend codes…
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 89.4 ms ] threadGaming is not in Google's DNA and they lacked the will to make the required investments to break into the industry (this was clear when it shut down it's internal game studios)
They launched on the cusp of a new console generation with last gen tech. They made big claims about 4k/60 but in reality games performed on par with a PS4 Pro (which was about 3 years old at the time of Stadia's launch). They never updated the hardware after 9th generation consoles came out the following year.
They did not launch with a big exclusive AAA first party game. There was no killer app. No Halo, no Mario, no God Of War. They were totally reliant on third party publishers porting cross platform games over. The only people with a compelling reason to use it were those with fast internet but no console/PC because it wasn't better graphically than incumbents and had no major exclusive games.
Microsoft's GamePass in the cloud model (or something like it) is likely the one that will catch on. Netflix of gaming. Digital consumption is moving to all you can eat subscriptions. Google model was "own" games in the cloud. It's a bit like buying digital copies of movies vs Netflix/Disney+/HBO Max. The subscription model appeals to a wider market if it can be priced right.
Stadia was just too early, and was up against giants like Sony, MS and Nintendo not to mention gaming brands like NVIDIA. Heck even Amazon is playing in this arena and I can't imagine Apple is far behind if they see it working elsewhere.
>I'm able to play Steam link games (over my wired local network)
"One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong..."
They probably asked themselves "are we that serious about gaming?" and the answer was no, so they shut it down.
I own a 2013 MBP. I reached the limit of dual booting a while ago, but still wanted to play new games without buying a new computer.
I subscribed to PlayStation Now, and got to play Spider-man for $12 per month and the cost of a controller. I knew going in that, like Netflix, I didn’t own the content and it might disappear.
I had a similar experience with Amazon’s service, where I played Watchdogs Legion for a few weeks. I used the PS4 controller.
I’ve been subscribed to Nvidia GeForce for sometime. I pay $4 per month (yay for legacy pricing) to have a high end machine for my casual gaming. My game selection is limited, but I own what I play. If I choose to build/buy a gaming PC, I’ll have games.
Stadia was flawed because I had to buy a new controller that was locked to Stadia, but games that are locked to Stadia, and subscribe to Stadia. That’s a lot of commitment just to _try_ a service. The idea of locking my game purchases to a single service was never going to fly for me.
Stadia could have been more successful if they adopted the models of Nvidia or Amazon, and just rented a machine in the cloud. The special controller can help decrease latency, but isn’t required.
Every time this came up the question would be, what happens when it shuts down since you had to buy games specifically for it.
That was also a problem for it, it didn't work with your existing library on steam or piggy back on something like Xbox Game Pass. They were trying to enter a market that already has many engrained players.
Look at me, I hated the idea of a service like steam with a passion, hell it makes me nervous thinking of all my games, only playable at the whim of valve, but here I am, I buy all my games on steam now. Mainly because I trust them, it took about ten years before I bought my first game, but valve did not mess up, they kept to a simple straightforward honest service, and they have proven themselves an honest partner in my game purchases since. still sort of hate it, but it is so convenient.
But google does not think like that, they think that if something is not an instant success you throw it out and start over, no concept of growing a service. Also, google would have a hard time running an honest service, they are an advertising company.
So this comes as to absolutely no surprise. A complete failure for Google and saw this disaster years ago. Failing to get gamers on board even in the pandemic, means you have failed afterwards, even with a console shortage at the time.
Oh dear.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27039202
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32276188
I used it and thought it worked brilliantly.
I had hopes it’d work out though but those died a while back when uptake stalled and the hype wave had already come down.
It works pretty well and has a pretty large library.
I wonder if what is holding them back is confusion around digital or disk purchases? Or licensing
Now that I have a 2019 MacBook Pro 16' with an AMD graphics card, I've migrated over but I won't have all the graphical power. Would have been a nice supplement to my gaming setup.
https://stadia.google.com/controller/
I beat Cyberpunk 2077, BL3, AC:Origins all on Stadia. I never once had to wait for a system or game update when I started a gaming session. I'm on google fiber and only very rarely experienced latency issues, the platform also had an "attack the spire" clone that I often played on my phone when I was away from the console. A couple of times I brought the controller and chromecast with me and gamed at other places, the whole setup was extremely portable.
They've refunded me what I spent, I wish I still had the platform though. It was definitely nice to be able to game again during the pandemic.
Content is king and Stadia had nothing but a mediocre list of third party games.
These tech companies think they can just jump right in because they’re experienced with cloud distribution, or other forms of media streaming and subscriptions. That’s why I don’t see Netflix Games as a solid contender. Being a game distributor is a whole different sector. Last time I looked, the game industry is larger than music and film combined.
Microsoft is the only one promising. They aren’t the best game distributor, cloud distributor, or most experienced with streaming services and subscriptions. But they’re the closest with all three combined.
For reference, imagine if a game leader like Nintendo jumped into this, they’d be fucked. A company so regressive they still use friend codes…