This game was mocked when it was announced as late to the party, mocked when it was demoed as looking like some wish.com avengers characters, mocked upon release as being a shallow experience, and now it’s being delisted. My backlog remains resilient. Thank God I put on my Himalayan Walking Shoes!
It’s interesting that this comes out during the FTC vs Microsoft case.
As much as Google shot itself in the foot, as usual, this also shows the anti-competitive landscape in gaming. One of the biggest issues Google had was convincing AAA studios to develop games for their “console”. Meanwhile, Microsoft is solving that by buying studios like Zenimax, Mojang, and soon Actiblizz. If you own the studio, they’re guaranteed to develop for your console, and they may choose not to develop for any competitor’s consoles.
But it has always been that way, with first party titles and exclusives , even purchasing studios like Rare or Psygnosis, its not like a brand new situation that developed right after Google announced Stadia.
If Google had done even any research, I would have started by looking at the PS1 launch and how Sony broke into a market then dominated by Nintendo and Sega with their exclusives, they would have secured a multi year pipeline of AAA titles before launch.
This is a mess Google could have completely avoided with some basic research and discussion with the remaining independent studios. Instead they launched and assumed that they could fix this shit later, rather than making an informed decision on if they actually had a real chance.
its not like a brand new situation that developed right after Google announced Stadia
No, but it’s telling that one of the world’s richest companies ran into this problem. It’s pretty typical of Google to be arrogant and not understand the market they were trying to break into. Also typical of them to give up when it turned out to be a hard problem to solve. But, still, they chose to give up rather than make what (for them) would have been a reasonably small investment to buy a few AAA studios.
It seems to me that to have been successful in this attempt they would have either had to become a major console manufacturer with their own exclusives (maybe not a market they wanted to be in) or to be the junior partner working with another console manufacturer, where they controlled the server side and the other company controlled the client-facing and studio-facing side. But, Google rarely does partnerships like that. You’re right that it really seems like they didn’t go into it with their eyes open. They seemed to just arrogantly assume that their technological superiority would be enough to disrupt consoles without having to do what everybody else did.
But this is a situation of their own making, anybody even remotely cognizant of how Sony and Microsoft entered the market, even Steam has lessons to share, would have been aware that they needed that pipeline of AAAs, and exactly how expensive AAA titles are to make. Its usually public record how much one of the manufacturers paid to buy studios as well, the order of magnitude of cash needed to properly enter the market are hardly secret.
Either they thought they could bully their way into getting them or they thought they didn’t need them, which is even worse, way way worse. They could have spent the money the others are in this space but didn’t, this is the main reason this fell on its arse. They can moan all they like about the price of admission but they could have afforded to pay it if they wanted or lobbied to change it before hand rather than wasting a few billions on this.
It will be very interesting at the level Apple pitch their new gaming service if the rumors are true. Do they go after the mobile lite eco system that Netflix is cobbling together or do they go all in?
Doesn’t fucking matter when they keep using cheap potentiometers in their joysticks making them only last 6-12 months before stick drift gets unbearable. It’s time they switch to hall effect sensors. I have a joystick from 2014 with hall effect and zero drifting. I have a king Kong 2 controller with hal effect sensors. Zero stick drift after nearly a year of rocket League abuse and zero drifting. I’ve gone through 2 Xbox elite controllers in 1.5 years. Get rid the trash components first.
The worst thing about Stadia was the squandered opportunities. Had Google actually put some effort into marketing it, it could have really succeeded. The tech behind it worked amazingly well. I played Destiny 2 on it from launch to the service's shutdown, and it was a fantastic experience. The latency was nowhere near as bad as people (who often never even tried the platform) would claim, and it was also the best place to play Cyberpunk 2077 at launch, as it was somehow the most stable version of the game. Streaming to YouTube worked very well, and some of the integrated features with YouTube (where viewers could interact with certain games) were also kinda groundbreaking.
But somehow, Google couldn't be bothered to advertise the product at all. They ran 1 Super Bowl commercial which didn't make a whole lot of sense to the average viewer, and then basically zero marketing after that. They refused to inform the public about what the product is or how it worked or what stood it apart from its competition, which led to bad-faith reviews and rumors being spread about the platform, ultimately leading to most people who knew about Stadia being wildly misinformed on it.
It's such a shame. I absolutely loved Stadia. It fit my needs perfectly. None of the other streaming platforms I've tried have even come close, even today.
Yeah a product like that needs a Big Personality to be a sort of spokesperson for it. To go around and do the press circuit, and be the face of the product. Get memed, etc.
My guess is it was just a bunch of well meaning nerds behind this one, and no one wanted to actually go out there and bat for it.
But you don’t need PS+ for Spider-Man and Horizon? And you could buy and sell the console + games after playing the two games you wanted to play on the platform.
It’s not as convenient as just streaming the games, but it is possible.
I wouldnt call a PS4 e-waste, if the PS2 is anything to go by it will end up cycling about for a long time in some shape or form. Seriously PS2 parts are a solid mix of old new stock, newly manufactured parts, or spares taken from scrapped dead consoles.
Regular use is irrelevant so long as it doesnt end up in a land fill, what matters is that they get some continued use and survive in solid enough numbers.
Eh, I will still be able to play the base game of say far cry 4 or assassins creed black flag. I have the disks, and even then you could always buy the versions that have all the dlc. Nobody talks about the fable 1 dlc but they existed.
Unless its a multiplayer focused game there will always be games to play on it, even if ya dont get the DLC.
Would’ve loved a streaming platform that doesn’t cost a whole console in a year in subscription fees + makes you pay for the games
Stadia's subscription service wouldn't have cost more than a console for several years. It was only $10/month, and also not required to play the games or use multiplayer.
It would've taken over 4 years for Stadia Pro's subscription costs to reach the price of a PS5, not even including a PS+ subscription. And during that time, you'd have been able to claim ~150 free games. Realistically, Stadia had the potential to be more economic than buying a console.
I got one, was super disappointed with the functionality and didn’t like it at all. Returned it in less than a week. I got it after it’d already been steeply discounted and was so glad I hated it and got a refund when they killed it…
After committing to several Google services only to have them shut down I wasn’t willing to risk it again.
Did they refund the subscription fee? If I knew they’d refund it all, I might not have cancelled my pro preorder.
I was willing to potentially be let down again but once I heard you had to buy almost all your own games (again, if you already own them) to play them on the service I cancelled. I was aware that they’d give you Destiny (a game I have zero interest in, especially with a controller) for free. I didn’t seem worth sinking money into the service.
The subscription fee was for a gamepass-like access to a catalog of free games, so they didn’t refund that. The subscription fee also wasn’t required for playing purchased games (although it was required for 4K quality).
especially with a controller
I mostly used keyboard and mouse with the service, since the games I like to play tend to work better with keyboard and mouse. I had a dinky underpowered laptop but was playing AAA PC-oriented games through the browser interface. It was great.
I’m on GeForce Now these days but I find that it doesn’t work quite as seamlessly as Stadia did.
It was not advertised as a game-pass like catalog when I was cancelling my preorder. I literally cancelled because it wasn’t that. It was Destiny and 4k 60Hz with TBD games coming in later months.
I only had a gaming computer and a Shield TV so Stadia would have been pointless for me unless it was in the living room with a controller and some interesting games.
I pulled them all from Google Takeout. Most of them are unusable unless I figure out how to convert them to a state that can be read by other platforms, but at least I still have them, for such a day.
But somehow, Google couldn’t be bothered to advertise the product at all. They ran 1 Super Bowl commercial which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to the average viewer, and then basically zero marketing after that.
Google is really bad at marketing despite being an advertising company. Most of the products they’ve launched then shut down I just never heard of, despite finding the ideas behind them really enticing after the fact.
In my experience it was pretty shit. While visiting family in Minnesota, I got a better experience using Steam remote play to my desktop in Seattle than I did using Stadia, both in terms of latency and visual quality. I’m sure it would have been better living in California or New York, where you’re closer to a datacenter. But Doom Eternal was just unplayable for me.
Despite Google being heavily invested in the advertising space, they have always been terrible at advertising their own products. It almost seems like the top brass don’t actually care about their non-search products at all.
Google couldn’t be bothered to advertise the product at all. Except, apparently, to me specifically. I must have seen the same handful of Stadia advertisements literally 100+ times while watching YouTube. I got very sick of it after a certain point.
I have room in my life for exactly one gacha game, which I don’t spend money on. Sometimes this is a fun little distraction, even though progress is slow without buying currency. This is how I felt about Record Keeper before they shut down the global version. I love FF7 so I’m giving this a shot, but it’s been a week and I’m struggling. There are so many superimposed mechanics that it feels like a new player starting a free to play game at year 5 or 6 of its life, after they’ve steadily added new mechanics, currencies, and other powercreep for years. But it hasn’t been out for years, it’s been out for a week and there are already so many things to keep track of. It feels like work.
Also, the “automatic” battle AI is VERY good. Better than I am. And you can double the speed so the battles go quicker. At first I was relieved because it meant I didn’t have to pay attention while grinding, but why am I doing this at all if I’m not even playing it?
I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t mind rentals if they are what you are intending. I miss being able to try out a game for a few days for a few bucks from renting it.
I don’t care for it in streaming, though, as when it’s a perpetual subscription I feel much more obligated to play the subscription games than those I’ve traditionally purchased to get my money’s worth. I like playing things when I feel like it. It doesn’t help that each time I’ve tried using Game Pass it’s taken hours to get it properly working and the games to function
It's a scifi roguelike where you lead a team of prospectors to try to recover valuables from across space to make enough money to retire.
Kind of in an odd spot source-wise, as the recent source code technically isn't open/available (last open releases were 10+ years ago), so it may no longer really fit, but seemed worth mentioning nevertheless.
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