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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

#421

Post by awill »

h0l0cube wrote: post #390
lumost wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It seems in recent times, Google product development is always backwards. They never fully commit to anything, with the mind that if they see an up-tick in adoption, they'll invest in it. But maybe if they put more than a cursory effort into anything new, they might provide something valuable and generate another revenue stream. But perhaps they're just too comfortable with the loads of cash coming from ads?

Bingo. Ads making so much money has destroyed Google, because they can make mistake after mistake and still be profitable. Most companies think this is good, but it's actually a curse. When decisions don't have consequences, people don't care. Google doesn't care if Stadia fails.

What surprises me more is why people trusted Google enough to invest in Stadia in the first place. Had they let you import Steam games (like Nvidia does), fine, you're not risking anything. But actually paying Google for the license to a game that's ONLY available on Stadia? No thanks.

This is exactly what HP looked like a couple of decades ago. Making billions from printers meant everything else suffered.

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

#422

Post by fuzxi »

cwyers wrote: post #418
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…

Valve also has shipped exactly one first-party game since Dota 2 in 2013, outside of VR stuff, and it's a card game. I don't think they're tops on the list of studios that could give Google a big hit game to put on their new cloud console.

Didn't they make that DOTA autochess game as well?

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

#423

Post by boltzmann_brain »

zapdrive wrote: post #364
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 wouldn't be surprised if this was the idea of a diversity hire.

underrated comment

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

#425

Post by maest »

mey wrote: post #349
bastawhiz wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Man, I'm so salty about GFN - they have a great product and an economic model that makes sense but, for whatever reason, they gave in to publishers' pressure to remove some games from their service. This is doubly upsetting, as publishers should have no say on where I play the games I've already purchased - whether it's on a computer I physically own or on a computer I rent in the cloud.

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

#426

Post by oivey »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #405
oivey wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s maybe a tiny bit worse, but describing it as terrible is a pretty extraordinary stretch. Google is fucked if the entire business model of Stadia, requiring massive investment in hardware, software, and content, depends on consumers being too stupid to link an account between app stores.

Slightly better UX is the raison d'etre of companies like sony, apple, zoom, slack, etc. It matters a lot.

The level of inconvenience is on the same level as having to log into Gmail on my iPhone. That doesn’t stop me from using Gmail or buying an iPhone. UX matters a lot, but not that much.

Steam is free by the way, since I guess I didn’t point that out in my last post. You just have to buy the games, same as Stadia.

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

#427

Post by daamsie »

zapdrive wrote: post #364
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 wouldn't be surprised if this was the idea of a diversity hire.

Because bad decisions are never made by able-bodied white males?

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

#428

Post by icelancer »

cwyers wrote: post #418
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…

Valve also has shipped exactly one first-party game since Dota 2 in 2013, outside of VR stuff, and it's a card game. I don't think they're tops on the list of studios that could give Google a big hit game to put on their new cloud console.

>> and it's a card game

And a massive failure at that.

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

#430

Post by Jochim »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #355
mey wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Geforce Now library kinda sucks to me, not all that much better than Stadia but that's my opinion. Stadia has a few names (e.g. Red Dead Redemption) that GFN doesn't and vice versa.

It used to be much better, but publishers cracked down on it when it started gaining traction.

I think it's ridiculous that a publisher can prevent me from using my license on what is essentially rented cloud hardware. IP laws have come to stifle the very innovation they were supposed to protect.

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