Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#121

Post by mywittyname » Mon, Feb 01, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

eulers_secret wrote: post #48

tmpz22 wrote: post #4

For context, Amazon is also struggling to make first party games [1]. I think it was hubris that these large companies didn't start with smaller scoped games and instead jumped head first into building their own engines and ips. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-01-29/amazon-ga...

Here's an article I read the other day on this: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-just-anything-except-g... My favorite quotation: (context: Frazzini is director-lvl) "[...]the team cringed as Frazzini struggled to differentiate between hyper-polished conceptual footage and live gameplay[...]". I am awe-struck, my only response is: LOL My second favorite tidbit was about their game "New World", in which players "…

> Could you imagine working in an industry for a decade, and then being in this position?

Negotiate for fat RSUs because they need your industry experience. Placate the dumb boss long enough for stock to vest. Use stock gainz to finance a studio with former competent team mates. Sell successful IP back to AMZN. Retire to building goofy kids games.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#122

Post by jayd16 » Mon, Feb 01, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

guardiangod wrote: post #22

I know Google/Stadia recently partnered with LG to bundle the Stadia app with LG TVs, but I wonder why Google doesn't do this with every TV manufacturers (save Sony.) If I were Stadia's marketing chief, I'd 1. Bribe the TV manufacturers to include the Stadia app 2. Advertise that the TV includes _a game console_ during TV commercials. 3. Allow the TV users to pay a bit extra ($20?) to buy a basic game controller. 4.…

Stadia could already be on those TVs. Google/Android TV has built in chromecast support but Stadia doesn't register these as a supported chromecast.

I think its probably some technical issue or they don't want to risk getting a bad reputation by supporting a wide list of semi-compatible devices.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#123

Post by liaukovv » Mon, Feb 01, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

breakfastduck wrote: post #118

liaukovv wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine buying health insurance from someone for whom it's a hobby.

I get the point you're trying to make, but actually your example is one where I wouldn't mind. I'd rather my bad health not be the central profit driver for someone...

Perharps amateur stock broker then?

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#124

Post by alach11 » Mon, Feb 01, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

hn8788 wrote: post #72

ketzo wrote: post #7

I think this might get the “oh, Google shuts down another area after a few years, color me surprised” crowd going, but for me this is totally the right move. There are a LOT of videogame developers out there. Many of them are quite good at what they do. The cloud gaming space, while much better than it used to be, has plenty of room for improvement — it’s not remotely mainstream yet, and there’s still time yet to min…

I think the reason this is a big deal is that one of the selling points of Stadia was that "cloud gaming" would enable things that consoles and PCs didn't, like huge persistent worlds with a ton a players in a single area. With no first party support, Stadia is just going to be a way to stream ports of games designed for consoles and PCs. Imagine if Valve released the Index, then announced that they aren't making VR…

To me this pivot makes a lot more sense. They’re sticking to their core competency. Gaming as a service, without a dedicated device or powerful machine, already has big appeal. If they nail that, they can always try some first party offerings to push the boundaries.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#125

Post by drusepth » Mon, Feb 01, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

I know it's cool to hate on Stadia still (but less so than it used to be, now that everyone seems to just use it as a Cyberpunk console...) but this move makes sense to me.

1. First-party AAA games are a huge investment (in time and money), especially for a company without any experience in building them. Starting a first-party game studio is a huge risk (financial and planning) that I'm not surprised didn't pan out.

2. Stadia has a reputation as the "indie game streamer" platform in a lot of circles after such a large % of their first games were older and from smaller dev cos. The unpolished first-party AAA game (if it ever came out) wouldn't do much to help this reputation; focusing on partnerships and getting new releases on the platform seems like it'd do far more for the service's future.

3. Unpopular opinion but I don't think exclusives should exist for any platform. It may be good for business but it's bad for most gamers.

4. Politically, it feels like we're about to move into a period where companies need to be way more careful with monopolistic moves into new markets. "Owning the platform and the content" seems to be a wedge-prone position that a lot of companies are worried about (Amazon, Apple, Google, etc) and this kind of just clears Stadia/Google from having to worry about that on "their console".

FWIW I have almost 100 hours on Stadia and 49 friends online in Stadia at the time of writing this comment, but YMMV, I am most definitely in some kind of Stadia-bubble, I probably have some confirmation bias, and this may also be wishful thinking based on the fact that I want Stadia (and cloud gaming as a whole) to succeed.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#126

Post by franknine » Mon, Feb 01, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

senkora wrote: post #73

offtop5 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why Amazon rolled another engine. Unreal and Unity are both fantastic. Let your dev teams pick from one of those two and be done with it. Unless your doing something really special theirs no reason to build an engine( if your goal is shipping games )

I saw a talk about Lumberyard once. The really special things they wanted to do were integrate it tightly with AWS and Twitch, which enabled some neat features like letting people spectate games and move their own camera around the field to do so.

You cannot use service from any other cloud provider as your game backend if you use Lumberyard.

https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/faq

Q. Can my game use an alternate web service instead of AWS?

No. By “alternate web service” we mean any non-AWS web service that is similar to or can act as a replacement for Amazon EC2, Amazon Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS, Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, Amazon EC2 Container Service, or Amazon GameLift. You can use hardware you own and operate for your game servers.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#127

Post by eecks » Mon, Feb 01, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

MikusR wrote: post #100

itronitron wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> >"When Cyberpunk 2077 was faltering on everything else in December, it was running quite well on Stadia." This is the first time I have heard that, it seems like something that Stadia's marketing team would want to tell people.

Stadia and PC's (even 3 year old ones) ran the game well.

It's worth pointing out that there are/were game breaking bugs, ui bugs, AI bugs, lack of features, strange stuff that plagued all versions of the game.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#128

Post by malwarebytess » Mon, Feb 01, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

shmageggy wrote: post #74

klipklop wrote: post #66

I don't believe Google has the right culture to make compelling video games anyways. Maybe at best a super safe mario clone for children. Anything remotely controversial will have half the staff protesting threatening to quit.

Why does a game need to be controversial to be compelling?

It's not a novel idea that all great art is in some way disruptive or transgressive. If you're aiming for art with cultural relevancy you've got to push some kind of boundary, mechanical, technical, or social.

If you have an culturally oppressive environment, whatever flavor, you're going to struggle to make great art.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#129

Post by BurningFrog » Mon, Feb 01, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

crucifiction wrote: post #45

guardiangod wrote: post #22

I know Google/Stadia recently partnered with LG to bundle the Stadia app with LG TVs, but I wonder why Google doesn't do this with every TV manufacturers (save Sony.) If I were Stadia's marketing chief, I'd 1. Bribe the TV manufacturers to include the Stadia app 2. Advertise that the TV includes _a game console_ during TV commercials. 3. Allow the TV users to pay a bit extra ($20?) to buy a basic game controller. 4.…

The reason they don’t push this is because Stadia, like a lot of things, is just a side project at google. It does nothing to drive significant new ad revenue, so it’s never going to get this kind of deep pocket investment.

Google is like a rich guy who switches hobbies.

He may have real musical talent, but he'll never put in the blood, sweat & tears for the band to make it big.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#130

Post by lapetitejort » Mon, Feb 01, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

PurpleFoxy wrote: post #99

gman83 wrote: post #78

This will probably be an unpopular opinion here, but I love Stadia. I have a gaming pc, but my GPU is getting old so the newer games don't run well. So I gave Stadia a go. My internet is good enough and the fact of not having to download a game before playing is just fantastic. Also I can play on my tablet in bed. I definitely think this is the future, if it's not from Google, then it'll be Amazon, Microsoft, or Epic…

I don’t think many people have a problem with the concept of game streaming or even google implementation. It’s the fact that you have to buy games specifically for stadia and that one day google will shut down the service and a lot of people are going to lose the games they paid for.

I'm very confident Stadia will shut down, but I'm also confident Google will give some offramp for people who bought games, either by refunding the full price or offering a digital key for some storefront.