A new report from Business Insider has highlighted some continuing changes for Google's cloud gaming service Stadia, and it doesn't exactly sound good - but it's also something that was mostly already announced. It's doing the rounds right now across various other outlets of course, as Stadia has never exactly been popular.
Back in November 2021, I wrote an article titled "Two years on, Stadia seems to have no direction left" and it doesn't sound like it's going to get any better.
We already knew that Google had shut down its internal game development studios for Stadia, with their focus to stick with third-party releases. That was seen as quite a big blow to Stadia when it was announced in Early 2021, and even then they said clearly the Stadia tech would continue on "for industry partners".
The article mentions "Google Stream" is now the new name for the Stadia tech Google provide to other companies, and the Stadia consumer platform (the store) has been "deprioritized within Google, insiders said, with a reduced interest in negotiating blockbuster third-party titles" so over time it's likely to see less titles release.
It's actually a huge shame, as the Stadia tech is actually really good and it is still by far the easiest and most fluid cloud gaming service I've ever personally used. I found Xbox Cloud to have poor quality overall and GeForce NOW was just a mess of launchers. Stadia sadly has been badly managed from the get-go, with expectations inside Google that were very clearly just way too high.
They also clearly got the revenue model completely wrong. I don't think it would have entirely saved it, but it would have easily been far more popular if they doubled-down on the subscription. Not everyone is Microsoft though and can afford to do something like Game Pass but this is Google - they absolutely could have. It was asking a lot to get people to buy full-price (sometimes more expensive too) digital games, that you only have for streaming and no local copy at all — with an optional subscription that took them forever to properly explain.
Meanwhile, the Stadia community managers have jumped in to try and calm things down on Twitter. In a thread they said:
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.If you hear one thing, hear this: The Stadia team is working really hard on a great future for Stadia and cloud gaming.
We hope you agree, and we know the proof is in the playing.
We’re particularly proud to be offering 50 games to Pro members in February, with more than 100 titles to join Stadia in 2022 and plenty of Free Play Days for everyone to enjoy.
There’s also more feature goodness coming to Stadia too - stuff we can’t talk about just yet, but we promise to share when we can.
Have a great weekend, Stadians.
Quoting: Eike?Quoting: dubigrasuQuoting: t3g. ...they made you pay for each game on top of paying for the steaming service.No, they didn't. Why do you guys keep saying this?
https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9580659
Quoting: dubigrasuQuoting: Eike?Quoting: dubigrasuQuoting: t3g. ...they made you pay for each game on top of paying for the steaming service.No, they didn't. Why do you guys keep saying this?
https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9580659
Well, if you could elaborate on your "no they didn't"? Google Stadia is a service you can pay for (AFAIR there's a free base service) and where you need to buy games to play them (there's some free games included, especially in higher tiers). So what's wrong with "they made you pay for each game on top of paying for the steaming service"? You can also get free games on Steam, but it's still a service where you (usually) pay for your games...
Quoting: EikeWell, if you could elaborate on your "no they didn't"? Google Stadia is a service you can pay for (AFAIR there's a free base service) and where you need to buy games to play them (there's some free games included, especially in higher tiers). So what's wrong with "they made you pay for each game on top of paying for the steaming service"? You can also get free games on Steam, but it's still a service where you (usually) pay for your games...
You CAN pay for a subscription and have access to all the PRO games.
You CAN pay for individual games and play them even if you don't have the subscription.
Or you CAN just play the free games without the subscription or buying anything.
So nobody MADE anyone buy anything, much less "on top of" anything else.
Quoting: pbQuoting: EikeWell, if you could elaborate on your "no they didn't"? Google Stadia is a service you can pay for (AFAIR there's a free base service) and where you need to buy games to play them (there's some free games included, especially in higher tiers). So what's wrong with "they made you pay for each game on top of paying for the steaming service"? You can also get free games on Steam, but it's still a service where you (usually) pay for your games...
You CAN pay for a subscription and have access to all the PRO games.
Yes. You get some free games - and pay for the others.
Quoting: pbYou CAN pay for individual games and play them even if you don't have the subscription.
While I think this is true, I actually do not find this on the starting page of Stadia (in German, this might make a difference). Googling for it, I find a remark on a games magazine site that there used to be a service that was called "Stadia Base", but was renamed to "Stadia". Googling fro Stadia, I only find Stadia pro. Do you think this renaming that makes the free service harder to find, made by the number one search engine company, was a mistake or intentional...?
Quoting: pbOr you CAN just play the free games without the subscription or buying anything.
I'm sure most of the free games come with pro. What comes with No-more-Base that's not actually Free to Play? (Serious question - I don't know.)
Quoting: pbSo nobody MADE anyone buy anything, much less "on top of" anything else.
Well, at least in German, and I heard the same about other languages on this very site, they are working hard on making you subscribe and not use the free streaming. They are actually actively hiding their free service. You get some free games with the paid service, but for the rest, they make you pay - you cannot play them without buying them.
Last edited by Eike on 6 February 2022 at 8:39 pm UTC
Quoting: jarhead_hCloud gaming is like electric cars - sounds great until you get the MAJOR stumbling block of the entire thing. With electric cars, it's still the exact same problem that has plagued them since the Baker Electric launched in the 1890's - the batteries. With Stadia it's the REQUIREMENT of an internet connection.Mmmm . . . nah. I have an electric car, it's fine. Analogy fails.
The way people who dislike the idea of electric cars think batteries will work, is not the way they actually work in practice. In practice, you plug the thing in every night when you get home, or after you go shopping or whatever, and it's full next morning. I haven't even bothered getting a fast charging station, I just charge the thing on normal house current, because "incredibly slow" is fast enough. And you never have to worry about gas stations again.
Even road trips are fine, the only time it gets annoying is if you have to wait behind other people while they're charging. But that's not the technology, that's just the state of the infrastructure, just like it's annoying if there are no gas stations where you need one.
Quoting: Eikethey are working hard on making you subscribe and not use the free streaming. .Well of course they do :) Every commercial entity worth their salt will want you to use the payed stuff and not the free one.
But at the same time they don't make/force you to subscribe.
From Stadia's landing page, right below "Try now":
QuoteBuy more of your favorite games. No subscription needed
Quoting: EikeWell, if you could elaborate on your "no they didn't"? Google Stadia is a service you can pay for (AFAIR there's a free base service) and where you need to buy games to play them (there's some free games included, especially in higher tiers). So what's wrong with "they made you pay for each game on top of paying for the steaming service"? You can also get free games on Steam, but it's still a service where you (usually) pay for your games...
All I know is I did not pay a dime for anything and I'm playing games on Stadia.
Quoting: t3gQuoting: GuestQuoting: t3gI’m glad Stadia failed so you can stop posting articles about it. Yes, it was based on Linux, but developers didn’t use that code for native ports on GOG and Steam. I thought of it like Android where it was a closed Linux ecosystem.
A) you want a service to fail, a service that others use, because you....don't want to read news about it?
B) you also want a service to fail because developers aren't releasing native desktop GNU/Linux versions? Despite no company ever claiming it would lead to that (Google never, not once, claimed this, and no developer to my knowledge ever claimed this either).
It's not like Steam is an open platform. It's quite closed. So are the majority of the games you're likely to be playing. Just want to point that out.
I did want Stadia to fail because they piggybacked on Linux and their "enhancements" never made it upstream. When the Steam Deck comes out with SteamOS 3.0, Valve's enhancements are going to be upstreamed. Plus, it was doomed to fail since they made you pay for each game on top of paying for the steaming service. If they just charged a monthly fee, then it would have been better. Especially for a service where you never really owned your games that you paid money for. This is true of digital content, but at least you can install to the hard drive with GOG and Steam.
I have my issues with GOG not providing Galaxy or a native Linux build of certain games, but you can always use Lutris to get the Windows games running and many times, it will run better with Lutris' Wine, Wine-GE, or standard Proton. Oh and I can download the .exe or .sh file on backups. I love that GOG is DRM free and why I have 400+ games in my library.
Which is incorrect, you paid for the titles you could play them even without subscription.
The "free" titles you get with the subscription you only can claim while you are subscribed, and only can play while you are subscribed.
See it as two different things. They offer the pay-to-play and the subscribe-to-play model. I don't like subscriptoions, and I do not play enough for that to be beneficial, so I bought the titles so I do not need to be subscribed.
I am and never was subscribed, I did buy AC: Valhalla there and still can play it.
The fuckup they did is to require subscription even for paid games for 4k etc. I do not know if they changed that, but I do not have 4k yet anyway.
Last edited by STiAT on 6 February 2022 at 11:55 pm UTC
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