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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

#541

Post by rossjudson »

ramphastidae wrote: post #396
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…

Serious question: does Google operate a single profitable business besides AdWords?

You should look into that Google Cloud thing.

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

#542

Post by Danieru »

stordoff wrote: post #431
lrae wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, not sure where the idea comes from that Microsoft fronts like the entire development cost for ... for what even? As a publisher? Sure, maybe. For games coming to Game Pass? No. Same for the EGS, it's not like they front all those games. (Most exclusivity is bought way later in the process.) But the original comment is pretty much Windows Phone back then. To this day I have no idea why Microsoft was so cheap and…

> How do you pay out developers? I’m a developer, I make a game, I say I’m going to put it in Game Pass, a customer pays [you] $14.99 a month. How do you decide how much to pay me, the developer? > [Phil Spencer, head of Xbox:] [In] certain cases, we’ll pay for the full production cost of the game. Then they get all the retail opportunity on top of Game Pass. They can go sell it on PlayStation, on Steam, and on Xbox,…

GamePass deals are fixed price, the "full production cost" is not an exact truth. For most indies the deal price represents an over shoot over costs, or just a large percent of cost. This is logical: no one ever shares their internal production costs. Like any business you treat business partners at arm's length.

Source: gamedev who has heard from serveral devs who got offers.

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

#543

Post by TinkersW »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #376
hmage wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google had to solve same problem any new traditional gaming console has to solve -- get publishers interested in creating for that console. Good luck with that. The moat is so high that even if you have tech from year 2222, the business side trumps technology.

Architecturally, are Google's Stadia servers substantially different from a standard PC?

They run linux and use Vulkan for rendering, so this is a potentially large port burden to force on devs.

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

#544

Post by username90 »

tjalfi wrote: post #382
username90 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is a company of engineers. Engineers solve problems by building stuff, not by bribing companies. I think the main exception is Android and Ads, which also happens to be the main parts of Google I disagree with...

Building successful platforms isn't about engineering - many well-engineered platforms were market failures. You have to enable third parties to be successful. Steve Yegge's Google platform rant[0] discusses this topic in detail. If your platform isn't popular then you need to provide incentives for developers to target it. "Each of the people we spoke with, who asked to be granted anonymity due to ongoing employment…

I know, it was kind of a jab at engineers since I listed two of Googles most successful parts as their most business driven parts.

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

#545

Post by Aunche »

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?

On Stadia, you just have to pay for the game. The subscription just unlocks HD and some free games. The fact that few people are aware of this really highlights how terribly Google marketed this.

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

#546

Post by brutus1213 »

h0l0cube wrote: post #525
mckeed wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because the last product they put full commitment into was Google Plus.

Well now I'm curious to know how Glass is doing.

Spent 2K on Glass when it came out. Horribly pissed at Google to this day. I thought I knew what I was getting except they literally turned features off after I got it (e.g. video hangouts). Their rational was dumbass that it drained too much battery .. the fix .. turn off the feature. Seriously?? They did not open up the SDK fully after they stopped dev/pivoted to enterprise .. maybe if some form of this tech takes off one day, I can sell it as a collector's item.

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

#547

Post by GioM »

selectodude wrote: post #520
h0l0cube wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Google basically has Dutch disease.

Interesting. Could you comment a little further? I can see the analogy here to advertising making their other products appear less competitive internally, but it sounds like you may have further thoughts.

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

#548

Post by mehlmao »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #514
delecti wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it also remains the defining example of "ludicrously expensive graphics card". The card below it, the GTX 780, was $650, which is still more expensive than any current generation consoles. Meanwhile the current top and 2nd tier GeForce cards (3090 and 3080) have MSRPs of $1500 and $700, which are more expensive, but not outrageously so. I just don't think it's accurate to paint a picture of the market from…

In 2013 you could drop to the mid-tier GTX 770 for $399 and get more performance either Xbox one or PS4. I don't think you are wrong, just more lenient in your definition of affordable. It is compounded by the supply constraints, and markups over retail we are currently seeing. I can buy a 3090 right now on amazon, but it is $2,450, 5x the console price. Titan was ~2x console price.

Titan MSRP is $1,499; unfortunately the only units for sale on Amazon are from scalpers.

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

#549

Post by orangeoxidation »

Jochim wrote: post #430
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I think it's ridiculous that a publisher can prevent me from using my license

I'm still not over the fact we are all buying licences instead of copies.

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

#550

Post by ruined »

mckeed wrote: post #486
h0l0cube wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Probably because the last product they put full commitment into was Google Plus.

no they didn't. google plus was half-assed, underhanded, and self-destructive. profiles were automatically created if you had another google profile, pissing everyone off. they provided essentially no feature advantage over other social networks, which means they had no weapon to fight against network effect. they enforced a real name policy even as facebook became notorious for doing the same. they aggressively banned business accounts, with obvious results.

google hasn’t done anything in earnest since gmail. youtube doesn’t count, that’s an acquisition.

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