Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Kimyrielle

Quoting: MohandevirHave you tried buying PC hardware lately?

Actually yes. Last Christmas. And spontaneously decided that my old PC will serve me well for another year. I know that -right now-, gaming PCs are almost impossible to buy.

But unless you're trying to say that the pandemic (which is ultimately the root cause for this) will become permanent, this is not relevant for the future of cloud gaming vs local gaming. The hardware market will eventually return to normal conditions.

And I guess the other side of the coin is that more people have mid sized PCs at home again now.

I don't know about that... Maybe. Thing is, the problem comes from ressources used in the fabrications of many components... If I got it right, the same ressources are also used in many other electronic appliances, so part of the available ressources might not even have been used to produce PC components. Time will tell...

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Quoting: Kimyrielle

Quoting: MohandevirHave you tried buying PC hardware lately?

Actually yes. Last Christmas. And spontaneously decided that my old PC will serve me well for another year. I know that -right now-, gaming PCs are almost impossible to buy.

But unless you're trying to say that the pandemic (which is ultimately the root cause for this) will become permanent, this is not relevant for the future of cloud gaming vs local gaming. The hardware market will eventually return to normal conditions.

Pandemic is a factor for sure, but not the only one... Cryptomining is another one, precisely at this moment and there were issues with the CPU supplying chain at Intel long before the pandemic... It was exacerbated by it, no doubt, but can you promise me there won't be another pandemic in the near futur?

There was also an incident that destroyed a memory manufacturing facility a couple of years ago... RAM availability and prices skyrocketed too. These phenomenons are happening a lot more frequently lately.

This said, I'm just showing what kind of stuff could make for a good argument for cloud gaming. I'll be the happiest guy when everything will come back to normal, but who can say with certainty when it will really settle?

In the meantime, I was still waiting on a RX5600 to show up somewhere... Decided to wait for the RX 6700, but I'm not holding my breath. All this makes cloud solutions attractive, nonetheless.

Edit: The thing is not to know if the pandemic will last... It created a window of opportunity to cloud gaming. Once a habbit is acquired, it's hard to get rid of it. Cloud gaming will never replace my PC, I like that thing too much, but I personnally heard about Stadia from 2 PS4 users who bought the Stadia Controller with the Cyberpunk deal and who have been totally satisfied. I never ever mentionned it (Stadia) to anybody, because I am careful about it, even if I like the concept. Google doesn't need a Stadia Gaming studio to achieve that. Even more true when you consider the Cyberpunk fiasco.

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Quoting: Kimyrielle.. Otherwise there is like -zero- point in cloud gaming...

Have you tried buying PC hardware lately? PS5? Xbox Series? Prices have skyrocketed if available at all... These "PC component crisis" are becoming quite common stuff. That's an area where cloud gaming might become attractive.

Still I wonder why Google didn't launch Stadia on Android TV first, though.

Personnally I really do like the idea of not having to buy a new console every couple of years, be it Stadia or not.

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Quoting: Liam DaweEA just announced they're putting FIFA on Stadia in March. Interesting timing...

Yeah... But... Where is NHL21?! :cry::grin:

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Quoting: LinuxwarperOne thing that is swept under the rug is how Stadia creates division. There was and is no reassurance from Google that they won't make Stadia successful at expense of local play. By that I don't mean they should allow local play on Stadia, I mean them getting exclusivity for games like Epic. Or doing anything else that's not third party exclusivity that won't erode availability or freedom to play games locally. But who cares about others as long as I get what I want right? Stadia is great! I can stream wohooo! Look at my controller in my gym bag! Wohoo!

In my opinion ensuring others are not negatively impacted by Stadia should be a concern by Stadia fans, but it does not seem like it. They largely don't care, and so I don't care. Division among gamers. Driving industry forward. Yeah right...

Just curious... In what is it any different than buying a PS4, XBox or Nintendo Switch? Why should it be more damaging? Imo it's a Linux console in the cloud. It's not a PC. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see why...

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Not really worried about this one. Like you said, it was a logical move. Maybe they hit a technological wall about the new tech they wanted to demo and decided it wasn't worth it, for the moment? Who knows?

Personally, I would like to see some form of partnership with Steam to add select games to the Stadia catalogue... Some kind of two way deal, for older Linux native titles or those that runs fine with Proton, available with the pro subscription, maybe?

It's just a wish, probably not a realistic one, I convey.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEPAs someone who actually works in the field and knows a lot about server pricing and cost of maintencance of larger infrastructures - 12% is indeed absolutely possible for the services Steam is offering. It would be at the very bottom of profitability, but it could still be profitable.

Yeah, but Steam doesn't just maintain an infrastructure. Developping VR, store features, open source developpement and other hardware intiatives is not done with volunteering. That's why I say that Epic can't catch up with a 12% cut. This said, I get your point and don't want either to dig deeper than that on the subject.

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Smells like BS PR, by Epic and friends, scrutinizing everything Steam does to find a flaw and tarnish Steam's reputation.

They know that 12% won't allow them to compete but are trying to force everyone to a lower quality service nonetheless. No thank you!

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: ZlopezThey are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.

They don't.

A game dev can sell their game anywhere, at any price they want. No skin off Valve's nose.

If a game dev sells Steam keys (which Valve generates for free, just for the asking) through a store that isn't Steam, at a lower price than they sell them on Steam, then they also need to sell them on Steam at that price at some point. So, as an example, a lot of the games sold in the recent Humble sale were distributed as Steam keys at a lower price than they were going for on Steam; those prices then got lowered on Steam itself once Humble's sale was over.

The lawsuit is talking about the main Steam distribution agreement though, not the Steamworks Steam Keys agreement. They're two different things. As far as I can tell, the Distribution Agreement is confidential and so we cannot see it. This is where the MFN clause is contained.

Are you saying that there are workarounds for the MFN? :grin:

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Quoting: ZlopezThey are saying that you can't have different prices on different platforms. So they actually dictate the price you need to have elsewhere. So if you have a game on Steam and GOG and there is GOG sale going on, you need to lower price on Steam too.

I got many examples of that being false, but who knows, maybe there were "rogue sales" going on? Because that's my first reflex: when I see a sale on other stores, on a game in my wishlist, I check Steam if the sale is on Steam too and I can say that in many cases, there are no sales or the prices are different (higher by a couple of $ on Steam). What's the explanation? I don't know...

Edit: Just to be clear, regularly I find exactly the same sale on both stores.

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