Ahead of the Cyberpunk 2077 release, Google has expanded the list of supported countries for their game streaming service called Stadia.
In the blog post update from Samuel Peterson who is the "Head of EMEA Business Development" at Stadia, they confirmed these newly supported countries: Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland. If you already have a Google and/or Gmail account - you're good to go. It may take up to 24 hours for it to all roll out fully though.
Stadia as a service is entirely free to sign up and use like you would any other store to buy games from. Plus there's the optional Stadia Pro subscription to get free games (currently about 33), 4K support and extra discounts at times. There's also now some free to play titles like Destiny 2 and Super Bomberman R Online with more to come. Once in, you can also grab Stadia Pro free for one month.
You can use the service on Stadia.com on Linux through a Chromium browser.
For new users I would suggest checking out the new Stadia exclusive Outcasters. I've ended up personally putting quite a few hours into it, as it's actually a huge amount of fun. Trailer is below:

Direct Link
If you are trying it fresh, do let us know in the comments your thoughts on the experience.
Quoting: DamonLinuxPLIs any way to test Stadia for internet speed, pings, lags? Any free demo gamę available?The article clearly states there's two free to play titles.
https://old.reddit.com/r/GameDeals/comments/k8mynz/stadia_borderlands_3_ultimate_edition_1099_89/
By signing up for the Stadia Pro trial I was able to get BL3 Ultimate for ~$1 to keep.
I was also part of the Stadia beta ("Project S" at the tiem) so I know it works great for me (other than gobbling up my limited bandwidth) but YMMV.
Last edited by seamoose on 7 December 2020 at 10:27 pm UTC
Quote(...) they confirmed these newly supported countries: Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and SwitzerlandAw yiss 😎
I did... Doh!
Crap... BD3 on Linux via Stadia?
But still not enough to make me subscribe to a VPN service, and thanks again to the NBN for my sh!tty VDSL / NBN hybrid (mongrel bastard more like it) broadband connection - thanks Turnbull + Abbott (I'm paying for 50mpbs and lucky to get 28mpbs so no point subscribing to a 100 mbit plan).
Australia - a digital backwater...
Quoting: UnixOutlawDANG! Did any fellow Aussies see "Austria..." and at first misread it as Australia?
I did... Doh!
Crap... BD3 on Linux via Stadia?
But still not enough to make me subscribe to a VPN service, and thanks again to the NBN for my sh!tty VDSL / NBN hybrid (mongrel bastard more like it) broadband connection - thanks Turnbull + Abbott (I'm paying for 50mpbs and lucky to get 28mpbs so no point subscribing to a 100 mbit plan).
Australia - a digital backwater...
I get why the internet is expensive in Australia - a remote continent with sparse population. But it's also the third richest country in terms of overall natural resources. You'd think your government would heavily subsidize it to compenste and make high speed internet more accessible.
Last edited by mao_dze_dun on 8 December 2020 at 6:52 am UTC
But not all parts of the country are not so lucky to have this deal.
Quoting: seamooseIn case you're curious about Stadia, here's a great deal on Borderlands 3:
https://old.reddit.com/r/GameDeals/comments/k8mynz/stadia_borderlands_3_ultimate_edition_1099_89/
By signing up for the Stadia Pro trial I was able to get BL3 Ultimate for ~$1 to keep.
I was also part of the Stadia beta ("Project S" at the tiem) so I know it works great for me (other than gobbling up my limited bandwidth) but YMMV.
That is a great deal! I've trying out Destiny 2 the last week or so and I've been quite impressed. Not impressed enough to start using Stadia regularly though. But spending $1 on Borderlands 3 was too good to pass up, so I bought it. Thanks for bringing that up!
Quoting: mao_dze_dunQuoting: UnixOutlawDANG! Did any fellow Aussies see "Austria..." and at first misread it as Australia?
I did... Doh!
Crap... BD3 on Linux via Stadia?
But still not enough to make me subscribe to a VPN service, and thanks again to the NBN for my sh!tty VDSL / NBN hybrid (mongrel bastard more like it) broadband connection - thanks Turnbull + Abbott (I'm paying for 50mpbs and lucky to get 28mpbs so no point subscribing to a 100 mbit plan).
Australia - a digital backwater...
I get why the internet is expensive in Australia - a remote continent with sparse population. But it's also the third richest country in terms of overall natural resources. You'd think your government would heavily subsidize it to compenste and make high speed internet more accessible.
Actually the remote and sparse parts have very little to do with it. It's mostly about the government not wanting to invest or being really, really shitty with their economic plans. There's also the one main operator for all national networks (everyone else just buys time off them) who want to recoup costs as quickly as possible and still think in terms of 28k modem quality at best.
On the flip side of that, back in 28k modem days, every single person in the country was guaranteed by law a certain level of line quality, no matter where in the country they were. That was back before privitisation.
Modern NBN (National Broadband Network) was mismanaged from the get-go, and then Abbott took a giant dump on it just in case there was any doubt of it being a steaming pile of....well, you get the idea.
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