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Google have now finally unveiled their new cloud gaming service named Stadia, offering instant access to play games in Google Chrome.

What they joked was the worst-kept secret in the industry (no kidding), sounds like quite an interesting service. Certainly one that could eventually end up redefining what gaming is. A little hyperbolic maybe? I'm not so sure considering how easy this should be to jump into a game. On top of that, they very clearly talked about how it's built on Linux (Debian specifically) and Vulkan with custom GPUs from AMD.

Something they showed off, was how you could be watching a game trailer with a button to play it on Stadia and (supposedly within a few seconds) you would jump right into it. That's quite en exciting idea, one that would easily pull in quite a lot of people I've no doubt.

As for resolution, they said it will support 1080p and 4K around 60FPS at release with 8K being worked on as well but that sounds further out if anyone even cares about 8K right now.

They also showed off their new controller, with a dedicated Google Assistant button and a button to capture video immediately for YouTube:


While Google are making their own dedicated gamepad, they did say it will be compatible with other devices too.

They also announced partnerships with both Unity and Unreal Engine and Stadia will "embrace full cross-platform play" including "game saves and progression". They also had id Software, talk about how it didn't take long to bring the new Doom Eternal to Stadia, thanks to how they made the previous Doom game with Vulkan.

This means, that development for Linux is suddenly going to become a priority for a lot more developers and publishers. I don't want to overstate how important that is, but it's a very exciting prospect. This doesn't suddenly mean we're going to see a lot more Linux games on the desktop, but it's entirely possible after they go through all the work to get the games working on Linux with Vulkan for Stadia.

Stream Connect is another service they talked about. They mentioned how developers have pushed the boundaries of gaming but often local co-op is left out, as doing it multiple times in top-end games can require really beefy hardware. With Stadia, each instance would be powered by their servers so it wouldn't be such an issue. They also talked about how if you're playing some sort of squad-based game, how you could bring up their screen to see what they're doing which sounds very cool.

Google also announced the formation of their own game studio, Stadia Games and Entertainment, to work on exclusive games for their new service.

As for support from more external game developers, they mentioned how they've shipped "development hardware" to over 100 developers. From what they said, it should be open to smaller developers as well as the usual AAA bunch.

Stadia is confirmed to be launching this year and it will be first available in the US, Canada, UK and "most of Europe". One thing wasn't mentioned at all—price, but they said more details will be available in the summer. The official site is also now up on stadia.com and developers have their own website to look over.

Google also posted up some extra information on their developer blog:

Google believes that open source is good for everyone. It enables and encourages collaboration and the development of technology, solving real-world problems. This is especially true on Stadia, as we believe the game development community has a strong history of collaboration, innovation and shared gains as techniques and technology continually improve. We’re investing in open-source technology to create the best platform for developers, in partnership with the people that use it. This starts with our platform foundations of Linux and Vulkan and shows in our selection of GPUs that have open-source drivers and tools. We’re integrating LLVM and DirectX Shader Compiler to ensure you get great features and performance from our compilers and debuggers. State-of-the-art graphics tools are critical to game developers, and we’re excited to leverage and contribute to RenderDoc, GAPID and Radeon GPU Profiler — best of breed open-source graphics debugging and profiling tools that are continually improving.

There's probably plenty I missed, you can see their video on YouTube here.

As exciting and flashy as it sounds, it's obviously not Linux "desktop" gaming which is what the majority of our audience is likely interested in. However, things change and if it does become a huge hit we will cover it more often if readers request it. Linux gaming can mean all sorts of things from native games to emulators, Wine and Steam Play and now perhaps some cloud gaming so I don't want to rule it out. However, I can't see this replacing Steam, Humble, GOG, itch.io and so on for me personally.

Obviously there’s still a lot of drawbacks to such a service, especially since you will likely have zero ownership of the actual games so they could get taken away at any time when licensing vanishes. At least with stores like Steam, you still get to access those games because you purchased them. Although, this does depend on what kind of licensing Google do with developers and publishers, it might not be an issue at all but it’s still a concern of mine. Latency and input lag, are also two other major concerns but given Google's power with their vast networks, it might not be so bad.

Also, good luck monitoring your bandwidth use with this, it's likely going to eat up a lot all of it. YouTube and Netflix use up quite a bit just for watching a 30-minute episode of something in good quality, how about a few hours per day gaming across Stadia? Ouch.

That doesn't even address the real elephant in the room, you're going to be giving Google even more of your data if you use this service, a lot more. This is the company that failed to promptly disclose a pretty huge data leak in Google+ after all. I don't want to be some sort of scaremongering crazy-person but it's something to think about.

As always, the comments are open for you to voice your opinion on it. Please remain respectful to those with a different opinion on the matter.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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285 comments
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fedotix Mar 19, 2019
Great if based on linux.
Anyone knows when Stadia will be available for public ?
Salvatos Mar 19, 2019
I think the worst case (while still likely) scenario for us would be that Vulkan adoption increases and that rubs off on Linux, but Stadia itself doesn't do much for us. I don't really see it signifying the end of actual game clients. That could happen sometime in the future, but the market and infrastructure aren't there yet. Too many people don't have the bandwidth this requires or don't want to use cloud services, and too many large developers are trying to do their own thing to hand over exclusive licenses to Google (see Epic opening their own store or GOG trying to make Thronebreaker a GOG exclusive, for instance). If it's a subscription service, you also lose a big chunk of consumers that can afford to buy a game on sale once in a blue moon but can't afford another monthly bill. So I don't foresee anything so drastic coming from Stadia alone.

On the other hand, I don't really expect much else to actually benefit Linux in this endeavor. We've already seen what good the porting of Assassin's Creed Odyssey did for us, and I wouldn't be surprised if Stadia ended up being an altogether different beast than a Linux desktop (like Android, as others have pointed out). For those who don't care about privacy and the other downsides of streaming games, this could be a boon as far as playing "non-Linux" games on a Linux machine goes, but for the rest of us I doubt the AAA's attitudes will change much.

Either way, I don't intend to use this for a few practical reasons and a general distrust of Google, but it's certainly interesting in its own right and if nothing else, I think it will do more good for Linux gaming than if it had not been based on open source.
Liam Dawe Mar 19, 2019
One thing I forgot to mention in the article:

Game preservation is also a pretty big issue with streaming services like this, since no one outside of Google and the developer/publisher will likely see the titles. Think of how amazing the emulation scene is for older titles and now with things like Steam Play enabling older titles to keep working long-past when they will probably break on Windows.

What happens when a developer/publisher vanishes? Are the contracts still valid or do Google then have to remove the game(s) and no one sees them again? Lots of situations like that going on in my head right now.
sub Mar 19, 2019
I love it how AMD managed to get the design win for this again. :)
There must be some technical reason behind it, I guess.

Otherwise, NVidia would have surely just outbid AMD to get finally
back into the console-a-like AAA business again.

Yeah, I do know the Switch features a Tegra...
Nice to see it's based on Linux and Vulkan but :

- Google
- If some AAA games start to be developed for these Stadia servers, i strongly doubt they'll be available for Linux desktop on others stores. I don't think Ubisoft or Square care about the tiny Linux market share, but i'm sure they care about the potential massive audience they could reach with Google
- Latency ( https://twitter.com/michaelphigham/status/1108086085077237760 )
- Game preservation
- Streaming is the worst DRM ever made, you don't own your games and you're screwed if a publisher want to remove a game (music licensing issue for example)
- They said nothing about prices, but i'm pretty sure it'll be a subscription model. And on Spotify, it doesn't seems to be a good model for indies ( « if you’re using a streaming service to listen to anything other than the most-streamed tracks, your money isn’t supporting what you’re hearing. » https://pitchfork.com/features/oped/how-to-be-a-responsible-music-fan-in-the-age-of-streaming/ )
- Actually, i don't think Google really care about indie gamedevs


Last edited by please_use_plain_text on 19 March 2019 at 11:25 pm UTC
Desum Mar 19, 2019
OK, not do be THAT guy, but this is a steaming service so:

A. It's literally the ULTIMATE walled garden and DRM rolled into one
B. It doesn't matter that it's running Linux; you're still running your games from somebody else's computer

Game streaming is also terrible for game presurvation. How exactly am I supposed to get the data files for, say, Morrowind to run in OpenMW off of a steaming service? You can't. You don't have to be a full-blown Stallman-ist to reject this "Netflix for games" crap on that token alone. But it doesn't end there, mods also get thrown out the Window. As do lewd games and games that even maybe violate anyone's IP.
Klaas Mar 19, 2019
I fail to how the hardest possible DRM can be a good thing. There also latency and privacy issues.


And to add something new to the discussion: It's very energy inefficient. Streaming videos a already a huge waste of energy – and this has to be a lot worse.


Last edited by Klaas on 19 March 2019 at 10:21 pm UTC
vector Mar 19, 2019
I do not know the nature of the Stadia beast, but I do have reservations. The following may be non-issues with regard to the Stadia end product.

1) I will not pay for a subscription service in order to play games. If the totality of the industry ever went that direction, I would stop playing new games. I am okay with a subscription-service option, as long as it isn't the only option (and as long as purchasing individual game licenses isn't made financially punitive). For me personally, Netflix didn't replace owning copies of films and programs, it replaced paying for subscription cable television service and physical media rental services. I still buy films I want to keep.

2) I will not tolerate advertisement overlays while gaming (e.g. banners ads while gaming) or third-party in-service ads (i.e. third-party ads displayed in the service interface). Ad proliferation has increasingly made YouTube less enjoyable to me (but YouTube is hard to avoid if looking for video clips), and I have higher expectations of a gaming service. For games developed by Stadia Games and Entertainment, unnatural in-game product placements (for a fictional example, [The Truman Show](https://youtu.be/43fqtIPGo2A)) would also be unacceptable. Ads displayed in a natural way (i.e. that seamlessly fit the world's environment, e.g. 1982's Blade Runner) would not be an absolute deal breaker.

3) Feeding more morsels to the data collection monster.

4) Any Stadia-exclusive publisher agreements.

At the moment, I am inclined to have as low an opinion of Google in the gaming space as I would Innovative Online Industries. "IOI believed that Halliday never properly monetized his creation, and they wanted to remedy that. They would start charging a monthly fee for access to the simulation. They would plaster advertisements on every visible surface."


Last edited by vector on 20 March 2019 at 12:30 am UTC
Shmerl Mar 19, 2019
Quoting: subI love it how AMD managed to get the design win for this again. :)
There must be some technical reason behind it, I guess.

Otherwise, NVidia would have surely just outbid AMD to get finally
back into the console-a-like AAA business again.

That's easy I think. Google want to be free to use the graphics stack commercially. I'm not sure Nvidia blob allows that without licensing from Nvidia. Though they probably partnered with AMD anyway in some form to benefit both sides (like getting driver support and so on). But at least they are paying for support which is a normal method for FOSS, not for the right to use.


Last edited by Shmerl on 19 March 2019 at 10:55 pm UTC
sub Mar 19, 2019
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: subI love it how AMD managed to get the design win for this again. :)
There must be some technical reason behind it, I guess.

Otherwise, NVidia would have surely just outbid AMD to get finally
back into the console-a-like AAA business again.

That's easy I think. Google want to be free to use the graphics stack commercially. I'm not sure Nvidia blob allows that without licensing from Nvidia. Though they probably partnered with AMD anyway in some form to benefit both sides (like getting driver support and so on). But at least they are paying for support which is a normal method for FOSS, not for the right to use.

That's probably it.

Didn't many people say NVidia will provide some open-source driver (not necessarily opening the current blob) when there is strong demand by the industry - not Joe user like you and me, ofc?

So are we there yet? :)

Edit: Also, maybe AMD is currently just faster when it comes to customization due to their long-term console design wins.


Last edited by sub on 19 March 2019 at 11:01 pm UTC
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