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Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

kotaku.com

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

#271

Post by 015a »

bastawhiz wrote: post #185

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 fe…

> partnered with Valve and shipped something mind-blowing

I tend to agree. In these cloud game streaming wars, Steam is a reservoir of totally untapped crude oil. Its the largest and most active western game platform, period, its beloved by its users, and Valve hasn't even remotely signaled an intention to compete. Companies and products like Steam are one in a million; Stadia, Luna, GeForce Now, xCloud, PSNow, are not. There is no amount of money they could pay Valve to make that partnership happen that would not pay dividends.

Valve/Steam is just "behind" in all of this modern gaming crap, and the fact that they're still the most popular platform (and its not close) speaks volumes about whether the CloudStreamingGamePass-way things are going is actually the right one. Its reasonable to believe that people who identify as "gamers" right now are not interested in that stuff, and the strategy Google/Amazon/etc have of "Netflix for gaming, no console, convert non-gamers to gamers" won't work. Time will tell, but maybe Valve's traditionalism is the right one long-term.

You know where Valve is investing their money? VR and Linux. God damn do I love that company.

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

#272

Post by adamc »

cryptoquick wrote: post #197
bastawhiz wrote: post #185

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 fe…

Why are people still so surprised when Google makes a thing and then two years later cuts apart the thing into oblivion? How many more times are they expecting their users to be Charlie Brown to their Lucy?

I think this has pretty well cemented that perception.

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

#273

Post by [deleted] »

Hadrianus wrote: post #70
Andrex wrote: post #47

From Kotaku[0]: > "The service’s best moments may have been when its third-party ports showed off the strength of the cloud gaming model, in which a game can run well on just about any device with a screen and a strong internet connection. Ubisoft games such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey ran well on Stadia. Destiny 2’s Stadia support let players of that game drop in for an extra match or quest from their phone or lapto…

Phil Spencer is XBOX, Phil Harrison is Google

[deleted]

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

#274

Post by User23 »

partiallypro wrote: post #240
bastawhiz wrote: post #185

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 fe…

> I'm dumbfounded at Google's lack of planning on this. Yes, but apply this to 90% of their new products. Google's planning in the current age is about as bad as Microsoft's in the 2004-2012 era.

This has been true for a decade. Gmail had nothing to do with management for example. Google has some really smart engineers but their management has never been better than mediocre.

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

#275

Post by Jochim »

kenhwang wrote: post #243
Clewza313 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Valve is not in the hardware business.

Valve has the Stream Link and VIVE. Steam Link is pretty much Stadia using your computer instead of the cloud. They're very much in the hardware business.

Valve have their own VR headset, the Valve Index. Steam Link was previously a hardware dongle but has been replaced by android/smart TV apps with the same name.

I'm surprised Nvidia didn't attempt to partner with them rather than developing GeForce Now as a separate product, they could have taken advantage of Valve's developer relationship/client/store front and handled the actual running of the hardware, which Valve seems much less interested in.

Stadia on the other hand is just a demonstration of the level of hubris Google is capable of engaging in. They thought they could launch a brand new store with the twist that people would need to pay a subscription to continue playing the games they had bought and without the option of using your own hardware should you end up purchasing a capable machine.

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

#276

Post by enos_feedler »

partiallypro wrote: post #240
bastawhiz wrote: post #185

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 fe…

> I'm dumbfounded at Google's lack of planning on this. Yes, but apply this to 90% of their new products. Google's planning in the current age is about as bad as Microsoft's in the 2004-2012 era.

At least they are winding things down faster. Google announced the studio in mid 2019 and shutting it down in early 2021. Microsoft decided retail stores were a good idea in 2011, and only closed them off last year. My bet is that Google is learning this mistake faster, no doubt with MSFT as an example.

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

#277

Post by clavalle »

chrisseaton wrote: post #248
Clewza313 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Valve is not in the hardware business.

What's in it for Valve?

Access to people that don't want to buy a gaming PC.

Or can't, these days, considering how strangled the GPU market is.

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

#279

Post by oivey »

enos_feedler wrote: post #261
jeremyjh wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like NVidia's model. Basically its bring your own game to their cloud hardware, but they integrate Steam, Epic store and one or two other distributors really well so that it is easy for someone to move to their platform rather than replace an aging gaming PC. I'm not sure who Stadia is for or how it competes with that and PS Now, which has a ton of popular games as well as Playstation exclusives (more of a rental m…

The NVidia model sounds like more hassle than it's worth. Might as well continue buying PCs. If you could afford them before you can probably still afford them. Latency will be lower and experience will be better (no waiting in a queue). The benefit of Stadia is actually it's simplicity. It's about bringing in new gamers who may have come from console world, but don't have the Steam libraries, etc. I wrote this in an…

I’m unsure how Nvidia’s approach is worse. On GeForce now you can play games from Steam or Epic, right? Isn’t Stadia the same except you are locked into only Google’s store? That’s pretty significantly worse.

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

#280

Post by m00x »

enos_feedler wrote: post #205
bastawhiz wrote: post #185

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 fe…

I think Stadia makes more sense when you frame it against game consoles. The easiest users to steal from the console market are the ones that buy only 1 or 2 console games which are traditionally reserved for those consoles (NFL Madden is the latest promotion and a good example). For these users, there is massive experience shift going from buying a ps4, ps online, just to play the same game all the time. I am one of…

It's actually way cheaper to buy the console if you're just gonna play one game. You get a PS5 for $550 these days, so that's $330 total for a AAA game ($630).

Then instead of $10/m, you have a console for 10 years ($120*10 = $1200).

Even cheaper if you go for the PS4.

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