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Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

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Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#161

Post by the_biot »

jsnell wrote: post #75

This is an anonymous source (not even verified by the original publicizer of the rumor) reporting second hand on what their "regional manager" friend heard in a "seminar". Why give any credence to this? This is about as close as it gets to "my friend has an uncle working at Nintendo" level of sourcing, but it's being taken as absolute fact by basically everyone in this thread. Mr. Killedbygoogle doesn't seem to be al…

You're absolutely right.

I think the reason this kind of non-news gets any traction at all is that Google is known to shut down services rather than fix their revenue model, and that Stadia has been a failure for some time. So we all know Google will shut it down, just waiting for it.

Keep launching this rumor, and you'll be right eventually.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#162

Post by xen2xen1 »

delecti wrote: post #98
tokai wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would still have your games files and be able to run them. Steam is not a rental or streaming service.

Many/most Steam games use Steam servers to authenticate ownership. It's a store, but it's also a DRM provider. Many games would require cracking to keep working.

Or a single last update from the servers that made every server check come back legit.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#163

Post by gambiting »

FVYPblNGl7R9ZAc wrote: post #63
Ken_At_EM wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is highly unethical to take away copies of the game that players had to pay full price for. Stadia owes them a retail copy of the games they purchased.

That is how all of this works. If Valve went out of business then you wouldn't have any legal right or way to get the games you purchased on Steam. If Amazon shut down Prime Video then you couldn't watch the movies you purchased on it. This is not a unique problem to Google Stadia.

The obvious difference is that games downloaded from steam are on your machine and are yours to keep forever - if Valve goes bankrupt you can still have copies(whether they would launch or not is a different question, but I'm sure someone would find a technical solution). When Stadia shuts down that's it, the games are gone, because you can't make an offline copies of them.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#165

Post by gambiting »

Ken_At_EM wrote: post #96
FVYPblNGl7R9ZAc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is how all of this works. If Valve went out of business then you wouldn't have any legal right or way to get the games you purchased on Steam. If Amazon shut down Prime Video then you couldn't watch the movies you purchased on it. This is not a unique problem to Google Stadia.

You’re of course entirely correct. Valve feels different because you can install the games and play them on a machine of your choosing. Maybe if Stadia allowed you to play the games on your machine OR Stadia, the would have been a more compelling offering. Personally, I would have loved a service like that. There are so many games that my machine can play and I don’t want to deal with even the slightest lag, but I’ve…

>>Maybe if Stadia allowed you to play the games on your machine OR Stadia, the would have been a more compelling offering.

And this is the #1 problem with stadia - it's a completely different platform, it's as far away from Windows as PS5/Xbox are. You can't just run Stadia version of games on your PC, even if you could download them. GeForce NOW is a much better product, because it runs normal Windows executables(just in the cloud).

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#166

Post by treesknees »

I recently purchased the cloud version of Kingdom Hearts for my Nintendo Switch, where the game runs in the cloud and streams locally to my console [1]. Despite the criticisms of cloud gaming, I decided to buy it because I already have a Nintendo Switch as my only console, and I wouldn't go buy a Playstation just replay those couple of games anyway.

My experience has been mostly good. I was able to tether my console to my phone while out of town and play flawlessly over 5G, it was surprisingly smooth for well over an hour.

But at home with a wired Ethernet adaptor and stable Internet, I still run into occasional gameplay issues with stuttering/lagging. And if I pause the game for too long it disconnects my session (presumably to free up cloud resources) and kicks me back to my last save point.

I really want to love cloud gaming, but the concept of having _all_ your games as a part of a subscription just doesn't seem appealing yet. Until we can transfer those licenses to different providers, it will remain a pretty niche category that the majority of people won't buy into outside of a few games here and there.

[1] https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/kingdom-hearts-hd-1-...

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#167

Post by delecti »

tokai wrote: post #142
delecti wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many/most Steam games use Steam servers to authenticate ownership. It's a store, but it's also a DRM provider. Many games would require cracking to keep working.

>most Steam games use Steam servers to authenticate ownership Not true. Maybe if you mainly play ubisoft tiles.

Can you be more specific or offer any evidence? That Valve offers DRM through Steam is unambiguously true. Here's their developer document on it: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm

And here's a list of games which are sold through Steam but which nonetheless do not use Steam DRM: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_g...

Why would such a list be necessary if games sold through Steam that used Steam DRM were the minority?

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#168

Post by jsiepkes »

999900000999 wrote: post #105
Ken_At_EM wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is highly unethical to take away copies of the game that players had to pay full price for. Stadia owes them a retail copy of the games they purchased.

I strongly suspect just to avoid backlash they'll refund people. But technically when you buy a game you're not really buying a game anymore, there's no physical item purchased. You're merely purchasing a temporary non-transferable license to use it. Back in the '90s if I gave you a Game boy game, it now belonged to you. I guess if I started a company renting them out Nintendo could sue me for copyright infringement…

Though it would be a total scumbag move not to compensate people whatsoever it might be a "good" scorched earth tactic. It ensures consumers will probably think even harder before adopting such a service. Meaning it will be even harder for competitors to succeed where Google themselves failed. Then again you will need to be sure never wanting to return to that particular market....

> Back in the '90s if I gave you a Game boy game, it now belonged to you.

Fip side is that if you lost the cartridge or it broke you had to buy it again. Granted, that almost never happened.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#169

Post by shagie »

Ken_At_EM wrote: post #102
tokai wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would still have your games files and be able to run them. Steam is not a rental or streaming service.

Yes but if Steam shut down you’d have no way to get to the installers again and you’d be left crossing your fingers the machine you installed them on doesn’t die.

I've bought a copy of Iron Dragon for the PC - I can even find the license key in my ancient google mail. It was published by http://www.antigravitybox.com/ and the game's website is http://www.irondragon.org/

I don't see too much of a difference other than Steam has more proven longevity - even if the developers that sold games on Steam don't. I can still download Dungeons of Dreadmor from Steam even though the company appears to have disappeared in 2016.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#170

Post by roody15 »

FVYPblNGl7R9ZAc wrote: post #63
Ken_At_EM wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is highly unethical to take away copies of the game that players had to pay full price for. Stadia owes them a retail copy of the games they purchased.

That is how all of this works. If Valve went out of business then you wouldn't have any legal right or way to get the games you purchased on Steam. If Amazon shut down Prime Video then you couldn't watch the movies you purchased on it. This is not a unique problem to Google Stadia.

It is unique in that Google has plenty of money and is not going out of business. In fact it just posted excellent earnings this week.

To say this project failed and everyone is just out of luck would really shows what kind of company Alphabet/Google really is.

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