Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

kotaku.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 834 posts

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

#181

Post by A12-B »

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…

When google tries to make a product that is new and could go either way, i forgive them for dropping it. You have to make mistakes and some products just don't work. But stadia is different. You could see it was never going to work, the infrastructure is just too wonky. I don't respect them for taking on a project they knew they couldn't do, or for deluding themselves into thinking they could.

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

#182

Post by hnburnsy »

wronglebowski wrote: post #94
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.…

There was recently an article about Stadia where a developer from a decent sized studio claimed they were approached by Google for Stadia. What did Google offer for the developer to bring the game to Stadia? Almost nothing. The figure was in the tens of thousands. For reference when Microsoft/Epic approaches the studios for games on their platforms they front the entire development cost. Sometimes millions of dollars…

Thanks, from that same article proof that the Google Graveyard is hurting Google...

>This concern — that Google might just give up on Stadia at some point and kill the service, as it has done with so many other services over the years — was repeatedly brought up, unprompted, by every person we spoke with for this piece.

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

#183

Post by StillBored »

causality0 wrote: post #134
ljm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google basically sounds like a large scale startup incubator where every successful project is doomed to fail.

There's only two outcomes: Either Google gets bored and kills it because it doesn't generate ten billion dollars a year in profit or it becomes so ingrained in our society killing it might cause an angry mob to attack Google HQ with torches and pitchforks. Why it can't spin these side projects off into their own companies to survive or die on their own merits I don't know.

Wasn't that sort of the point of alphabet? To put these into their own self sustaining "divisions" so they could be spun out easily or at a high level choose to fund them?

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

#184

Post by hobofan »

williamdclt wrote: post #158
senkora wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know absolutely nothing of game dev, but adding cameras to the scene doesn't sound like it would be the most complex aspect of developping a video game?

Enabling that for in-browser/mobile spectators without needing to install the game wouldn't be exactly trivial, though.

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

#185

Post by bastawhiz »

I'm dumbfounded at Google's lack of planning on this. I tried Stadia, and they had (have?) so few games that they seem to have neither search nor pagination on the list that you can play. None of the games are ones that I care about.

It feels like they could have—at the cost of short-term profit and pride—partnered with Valve and shipped something mind-blowing. But instead we're left with a bunch of AAA games that feel half-baked (Hitman crashes on first boot and complains about a lack of a controller) and a bunch of indie games that feel like a sad attempt to squeeze a few extra bucks out of a middling title (the Hello Neighbor hide and seek game) and titles released half a decade ago (superhot).

Minecraft is on every console imaginable—except Stadia. What about Roblox? Fortnite? Factorio? Among Us? Any Sid Meier's game? Any Paradox game? Every genre of game that I actually put time into is completely absent on their platform. Every game from the top 10 (perhaps 20 or more?) on Twitch right now is absent on Stadia. I don't know what they're doing, but whatever it is, it's wrong.

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

#186

Post by whymauri »

mywittyname wrote: post #121
eulers_secret wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I... know about someone who did exactly this (minus selling IP back to AMZN).

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

#187

Post by enos_feedler »

madrox wrote: post #141
wronglebowski wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was recently an article about Stadia where a developer from a decent sized studio claimed they were approached by Google for Stadia. What did Google offer for the developer to bring the game to Stadia? Almost nothing. The figure was in the tens of thousands. For reference when Microsoft/Epic approaches the studios for games on their platforms they front the entire development cost. Sometimes millions of dollars…

Having been approached by Google for these kinds of projects, I 100% believe this. I was leading a team approached by them to do something similar for Google Glass. There was no real incentive there except the privilege of being an early glass partner. The entire process of working with them was a nightmare and we decided to bow out. I'm short on any attempt Google makes at being a media company.

Google glass and game streaming are two very different projects with different motivations/incentives etc for partnering. Game streaming is on the cusp of becoming mainstream. The technology works (playable latency), and the overall product is simpler than competing products (pcs, consoles) for the job we hire gaming hardware for. It is clear the future is in the controllers and displays, not in math boxes. The biggest difference is that gaming is an existing habit gamers have. Google Glass was something completely new and was unclear what we were using it for.

I would also say "media company" is pretty broad. Will Google become a media infrastructure company? yes (they already are). Will they become a media platform? yes, (they already are). Anything more and it's probably spreading investment too thin, but those are substantial components to media.

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

#188

Post by chipotle_coyote »

aabhay wrote: post #148
causality0 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only two outcomes: Either Google gets bored and kills it because it doesn't generate ten billion dollars a year in profit or it becomes so ingrained in our society killing it might cause an angry mob to attack Google HQ with torches and pitchforks. Why it can't spin these side projects off into their own companies to survive or die on their own merits I don't know.

The second one should read “or it becomes a large scale ad data gathering opportunity”. That’s the value of Maps and Gmail IMO.

You're implicitly painting "become an unqualified mega-success" and "become a large scale data gathering opportunity" as if they were mutually exclusive, but they're not. It's because Maps and Mail are so wildly successful that they're great data gathering opportunities.

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

#189

Post by Traster »

im3w1l wrote: post #153
causality0 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only two outcomes: Either Google gets bored and kills it because it doesn't generate ten billion dollars a year in profit or it becomes so ingrained in our society killing it might cause an angry mob to attack Google HQ with torches and pitchforks. Why it can't spin these side projects off into their own companies to survive or die on their own merits I don't know.

My guess would be that disentangling a project from all proprietary dependencies is very expensive.

It's actually a pretty interesting element of Google, their adherence to a centralized infrastructure must make spin offs and acquisitions incredibly difficult.

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

#190

Post by arduinomancer »

senkora wrote: post #167
williamdclt wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know absolutely nothing of game dev, but adding cameras to the scene doesn't sound like it would be the most complex aspect of developping a video game?

Imagine a Twitch livestream with tens of thousands of viewers, and each one is able to independently move a live camera to get the view they want. The complexity comes from scale.

Yeah that sounds like a really expensive feature.

Seems like you’d need an instance of the game with its own GPU for every viewer.

Post reply on HN