271–280 of 424 posts
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"Buying into" isn't only about money. A lot of people put time and effort into Inbox, Reader etc. and they were badly burned when Google decided they weren't making enough millions of dollars.
The biggest difference between Stadia and Inbox, Reader, etc is that people pay for Stadia. That alone seems like comparing apples to oranges.
This is right up my alley being a pretty casual gamer. I have a 1GB Fiber connection at home so streaming shouldn't be an issue, the cost is fairly minimal, and not having the worry about downloading or updating games and just being able to pick up the controller and have a quick gaming session will be perfect. And the cost to entry is very low, so even if the service is a bust and I leave after the 3 free months, I'…
Honest question now, you say you're a casual gamer, do you have a pc with a video card? With a gigabit connection, updates are really a non-issue. I can't see why people with even moderate gaming rigs ($150 gpu) would bother with this service? Is 4k really that big of a deal?
I'm tired of updating my GPU drivers and experinece (5-10 minutes), then launching Steam, waiting for it to update and restart (2-3 minutes), then picking the game I want to play, waiting for it to update and install (5-10 minutes), then finally launch the game and have it spend more time connecting to servers before I can game.
The value prop of seeing a game trailer or game video that seems interesting and being able to say "play with stadia" and it just throwing me right into the game is the feature that speaks most to me.
If Stadia does this and it works well enough, i'll gladly get rid of gaming PC.
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You can only play them offline as long as it can check in to Steam every few days. If (once) Steam is turned off, it will no longer be able to do that.
> If (once) Steam is turned off Big if, and if Steam doesn't provide an alternative method or change their DRM before turning off. Something unprecedented for Steam over 20+ years, but not so for Google.
Anyone know of a "how will Stadia perform on my ISP" check (all I see is a bandwidth check, which is not the same)? I'm not expecting anything (I'm on average 50ms ping to servers, 120ms ping if you include processing on the remote end), but it would be good to have confirmation. I'm also disappointed by the dramatic extension of the "you don't own the games you buy", since there's not even an option to download the…
They have an official speed test - https://projectstream.google.com/speedtest
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Yes, indeed! However Google has historically shown that they are eager to shut down products, and the costs of distributing Stadia games far outweigh the costs of distributing Kindle books. Competition makes this also less likely to succeed. I think the concern is fundamentally the same, but the chances feel much higher, which makes it a bigger worry.
the costs of distributing Stadia games far outweigh the costs Games are just another form of media. YouTube costs Google a ton of money. But the control over media, virality, discovery, and advertisement is worth it to them. So has it been for video. So it shall be for games.
The same can’t be said for this new business model. The entire point of the comment you’re replying to is that Google doesn’t have a good track record of letting products that don’t make them money live.
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I don't think it's as hard as you'd imagine. Gamers are the craziest of early adopters and tech enthusiasts. They'll flock to you if you give them a great product. Unlike other areas (messaging, social media), you don't need the critical mass to have a successful product especially with cross-play becoming more and more common/acceptable. Even if you need the critical mass, it's much easier to get it with a great pro…
Go on a number of the gaming subreddit and you’ll see Stadia is being met with distaste and hesitation. Gamers are increasingly tiring of the games-as-a-service model, and this is a step even further in that direction. Personally I think this will have the same lifetime as a lot of other google products: it’ll launch, have some success, and then be killed unceremoniously a couple of years down the line.
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If you buy the game, do you actually own it though? Or do you lose it when Stadia shuts down? If I'm going to pay full price for a game, then I want to be able to play it 10 or 20 years from now.
To be fair, this is little different to buying a game on the PlayStation Store or Xbox Store. As soon as those go offline, you will no longer be able to download those games. And so you'll be at the mercy of the lifespan of the hard drive. You won't be able to copy the games to another device as it won't be able to validate ownership.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, indeed! However Google has historically shown that they are eager to shut down products, and the costs of distributing Stadia games far outweigh the costs of distributing Kindle books. Competition makes this also less likely to succeed. I think the concern is fundamentally the same, but the chances feel much higher, which makes it a bigger worry.
the costs of distributing Stadia games far outweigh the costs Games are just another form of media. YouTube costs Google a ton of money. But the control over media, virality, discovery, and advertisement is worth it to them. So has it been for video. So it shall be for games.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Go on a number of the gaming subreddit and you’ll see Stadia is being met with distaste and hesitation. Gamers are increasingly tiring of the games-as-a-service model, and this is a step even further in that direction. Personally I think this will have the same lifetime as a lot of other google products: it’ll launch, have some success, and then be killed unceremoniously a couple of years down the line.
People viewing gaming subreddits most likely already own a console or gaming PC and aren't the target audience for Stadia. Google's aim is to open up gaming to new markets of people who only have low end PCs, laptops or mobile devices.
Those are the herds we all profit from. Not whales but cows. Why would I want to be on the bleeding edge and get a shit experience?