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Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

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

#331

Post by enos_feedler »

oivey wrote: post #329
enos_feedler wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll repeat what I said: "the value prop needs to focus on the job at hand: playing a _specific_ game which happens to be your favorite game you play mostly. Thinking of it as some kind of a gaming platform is not the way." By considering Steam and Epic, you are already looking at this from the perspective of a platform. I am simply saying Stadia is better if the game you love is already there. NFL Madden is the late…

Madden isn’t available on GeForce Now apparently, but besides that I don’t think you’ve explained why Stadia is better. On Stadia and GeForce Now, you pay a subscription fee and pay for the game. Is it something about the Stadia hardware that makes it better?

Yes. Stadia does not assume you know how to use a gaming PC. Steam and Epic might be fine if you already know what those things are. If you don't, it is far too complex. Billions of people understand the simple app store model that comes with their phone. It's the one stadia uses.

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

#332

Post by pid_0 »

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…

Google is REALLY bad at marketing. I have no idea who runs their product teams, must be college interns, because they have no clear goal.

Stadia still is missing basic features like pagination or searching, but the EXPERIENCE is great. I don't know why you are having issues, but Hitman 2+3 work amazing for me with the stadia controller. 60fps, 4k, etc.

They also have Ubisoft+ integration and with this news they seem to be pushing for more integrations like that which will make the platform even better.

Twitch will never be on Stadia as they compete with Youtube Gaming, which has direct integration with Stadia.

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

#333

Post by clankyclanker »

ahelwer wrote: post #326
015a wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 n…

The 2008-2017 period was great for PC gaming. Now graphics cards alone cost as much or more than an entire console. The prices only seem to go up. Game streaming has the opportunity to dramatically decrease costs. I think it will work.

I already have friends for whom it’s cheaper to own a computer and use streaming systems (Shadow?) than it is to own a single Gaming PC.

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

#334

Post by smileybarry »

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.…

> Most smart TVs these days are more than fast enough to stream HD broadcast. I don't understand why Google doesn't push this.

A lot of them have pretty bad game mode latency, though, which isn't a problem with home consoles but start to become a problem once you add streaming latency. Then some of them have >10ms decode latency, and all of it starts to ramp up the delay.

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

#335

Post by gsich »

enos_feedler wrote: post #292
oivey wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'll repeat what I said: "the value prop needs to focus on the job at hand: playing a _specific_ game which happens to be your favorite game you play mostly. Thinking of it as some kind of a gaming platform is not the way." By considering Steam and Epic, you are already looking at this from the perspective of a platform. I am simply saying Stadia is better if the game you love is already there. NFL Madden is the late…

Xcloud or Geforcenow offer the best of both worlds. You "own" (in whatever sense you can "own" the game) the game and you have the choice where you want to play it. Not at home/cheap notebook? No problem. With Stadia you can only stream the game.

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

#336

Post by s1k3s »

Love how the same community that trashes Google for killing their products is also trashing them on every single attempt at building one. It doesn't work in my country which means it sucks. It doesn't have whatever game I want which means it sucks. It doesn't work on my crap WIFI (although they explicitly say you need a powerful internet connection) which means it sucks, and so on.

I think Stadia is one of the few really innovative products released in the gaming world in years. Everyone else is just pumping their money into sales & marketing and you keep buying their products year after year, even though there's nothing new to them.

Perhaps they wouldn't kill more than half of the projects they start if you'd give them some real feedback on how to improve them instead of constantly throw shit at them like they owe you something.

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

#337

Post by mmmBacon »

serial_dev wrote: post #315
FalconSensei wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's only been a failure because of the lack of games Which, to be frank, is the one reason someone would use Stadia - to play games.

I get what you are saying, games are essential if you are building a gaming platform But a lot of people expected it would fail due to network issues, lag/delay, etc. If the tech was terrible, the good games wouldn't have been enough to save the project.

I would argue that the project never got far enough to tell if it was a successful gaming platform since there are no games that people want to play. I guess given the very limited functionality it’s technically not a failure. But the whole point is to have games people want to play.

Compare to Sony PlayStation 1 (which was a phenomenal success):

Since Sony had no experience in game development, the company turned to third-party game developers. Recently released consoles like the Atari Jaguar and 3DO suffered underwhelming sales due to a lack of developer support, prompting Sony to redouble their efforts in gaining the endorsement of arcade-savvy developers.[22] With initial support from Namco, Konami, and Williams Entertainment,[41] as well as 250 other development teams in Japan alone, the company secured the launch of influential new games such as Ridge Racer and Mortal Kombat 3.[22][5]

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

#338

Post by pid_0 »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #142

Fundamentally these big tech companies just don’t understand game development. AAA games cost a lot of money, so these companies think that if you come with a bunch of money, you will end up with a AAA game. My company was pitched by both Google (for stadia) and Amazon to create games for them and it was totally clear they had no idea what they were doing, and no idea what they were even trying to achieve. The funny…

>The funny thing is that in both cases we felt that their attitude was also “These guys have no idea what they are doing” about us too.

This is pretty much how every Googler thinks.

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

#339

Post by enos_feedler »

adamc wrote: post #269
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…

To sell me on buying a stadia game -- at full price -- you have to convince me that this is the platform of the future, that Google is committed . Google starts with a handicap there because of prior behavior. This effectively kills Stadia as a service. If they were only willing to try for a couple of years... let's just say people were right to doubt that Google can be counted on for a service.

That is a fair perspective given the history of Google. I still think this needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis. Google doesn't want to kill things off, they just realize the ROI doesn't make sense in terms of profits they can capture. I think specifically in the case of Stadia, there are lots of things in Google's favor that make this something they will succeed at and capture lots of profit/value from. The market is huge too. It also is a beachhead into a consumer product (TV) that Apple hasn't really invested in yet. Console-class couch/TV gaming is an important use case that Apple, Amazon and Google will battle for in their "home" product lines. This transformation is only beginning so as long as Google sticks with it they'll do fine.

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

#340

Post by pid_0 »

mattlondon wrote: post #34

Until you can play your Steam game library (and perhaps Epic and Unisoft and GOG) on Stadia, I think they'll struggle. I have paid for Geforce Now which does let you play Steam et al games (although not everything is available which is annoying) - it is about £4 a month currently (or free if you can spend time waiting to play) and the experience feels largely the same to Stadia to me in terms of latency and quality.…

Have you compared Geforce now to Stadia with the stadia controller? I can't imagine it would match it, it would be pretty much impossible
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