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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

#341

Post by lumost »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #195
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…

Everyone knew this was a bad idea, and the truly curious thing is, how does anyone who greenlit this on any level still have a job? Stadia had a narrow set of interesting use cases around features deeply integrated with Google products: Zero of them were ready for launch, and I think all but one are still unavailable today. The value for gamers is debateable at best, but exclusive titles would be the only serious way…

This is the really confusing part to me. For most of the major metro's of the world cloud gaming is completely feasible on today's internet. Playing on servers in NYC from Boston works flawlessly as a casual gamer, and really opened up the possibility for me to enjoy AAA titles.

Most studios have to target a variety of hardware, stadia exclusives could have allowed studios to focus exclusively on top end experiences which really flex the hardware - similarly the potential for multi-TB fast storage and 10 Gb connectivity could have enabled dramatically larger game worlds than we see today.

But it's absolutely a go big or don't bother problem.

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

#342

Post by mdoms »

jankeymeulen wrote: post #324
mdoms wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NZ has excellent internet speeds.

Stadia needs low latency to a Google DC. There are plenty of such DCs in the US and Europe, but not in NZ.

Yes it's a shame DCs are immutable and impossible to add to.

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

#343

Post by Trasmatta »

s1k3s wrote: post #336

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 re…

> I think Stadia is one of the few really innovative products released in the gaming world in years

It's not really innovative though, Google was not even close to the first company to try cloud gaming. OnLive started in 2010. PS Now started in 2014.

It was a bad implementation for a number of reasons, and Google should be criticized for it.

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

#344

Post by oivey »

enos_feedler wrote: post #331
oivey wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Steam and Epic are literally app stores. I guess you have to link an extra account to use it with GeForce Now? For that minuscule amount of extra friction you get access to a much larger set of games on stores that won’t shut down when Google gets bored in a year or two.

edit: in what way does Steam or Epic expect you to understand how to use a “gaming PC”?

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

#345

Post by enos_feedler »

gsich wrote: post #335
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…

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.

The question for me is if it works on a cheap notebook or on the road, why wouldn't you just want to play it this way even when you are at home? Why do I want to own anything? I just want to play the games I bought.

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

#347

Post by epanchin »

eecks wrote: post #132
breakfastduck wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Aren't health insurance companies losing money by paying out? It's in their interest that their paying customers stay in good health.

I understand it as - premiums are limited by law as a multiple of payouts. The more they pay out, the higher premiums they can charge. So, peversly, the more they pay out, the more they can make.

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

#348

Post by alasano »

enos_feedler wrote: post #276
partiallypro wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Perhaps we will reach some sort of google launch singularity where projects are launched and abandoned instantly.

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

#349

Post by mey »

bastawhiz wrote: post #258
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone knew this was a bad idea, and the truly curious thing is, how does anyone who greenlit this on any level still have a job? Stadia had a narrow set of interesting use cases around features deeply integrated with Google products: Zero of them were ready for launch, and I think all but one are still unavailable today. The value for gamers is debateable at best, but exclusive titles would be the only serious way…

It's only been a failure because of the lack of games. The tech (at least to me) feels fine. Which is honestly the worst part—it _could_ be a success but the business side is broken.

Compare to https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/ and https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/cloud-gaming

Both have their own quirks, but they don't suffer from lack of games.

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

#350

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

oivey wrote: post #279
enos_feedler wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The UI is worse as you need to make yet another account and pay for steam. That experience is terrible enough to kill the thing for a non-gamer.
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