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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

#231

Post by majewsky »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #200
gambiting wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you have to download a pirate's crack to play a game, you may as well download a pirate version of the game in the first place. I don't see much substantial difference between these two scenarios. Steam is a DRM system with good branding, that gamers treat as special because it comes from Valve. Anecdotally, a lot of gamers believe and trust that Valve would free their games of DRM if Valve ever went out of busine…

I don't disagree, but there are other reasons to like Steam. I like Steam because they heavily invest into Linux support, even for games that are not theirs. I understand that they're not doing this out of altruism, they have several business-level reasons, but they happen to align with my interests and that's really all I can ask for in a for-profit company.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#232

Post by sithadmin »

josefx wrote: post #172
sithadmin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call Stadia a joke. It does in fact work quite well. But it's not really positioned to compete with the other first-party console alternatives, nor does it have compelling features that make it a better choice than products let you DIY an experience (e.g. Parsec + self-hosted gaming rig, Steam Remote Play, GeForce Now, GPU-accelerated VDI as a service like Shadow...). For a while Google was literally givin…

> I wouldn't call Stadia a joke What kind of gaming platform randomly bans high profile game devs. because an automated Youtube bot told them to? A bad joke of one. > It does in fact work quite well. Didn't they fake high res video streams by up scaling bad renders? Haven't used it but as far as I understand there was quite a bit of overpromising and underdelivering going on. > other first-party console alternatives,…

Google's auto-ban/content moderation issues are a separate issue from the tech, which is fine. I never noticed issues with resolution or rendering, and haven't heard complaints about it from friends who tried it. We all ended up abandoning Stadia due to there being better options elsewhere, not because Stadia itself (aside from game selection perhaps) was bad.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#234

Post by jjulius »

endisneigh wrote: post #224
Havoc wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People believing a baseless rumor so easily is sad. There is an incredibly long list of precedents: https://killedbygoogle.com Scroll through that and once you get to the bottom tell me people are still being unreasonable... I am glad to hear (anonymous) confirmation that it isn't getting killed though.

That list is irrelevant. Even if Google had never killed a product before, it would be worth believing if there is solid evidence. Here, there is none.

>That list is irrelevant.

A company's operating history is absolutely relevant to whether or not people believe rumors about it's operations.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#235

Post by havblue »

OskarS wrote: post #204
havblue wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think it would be trivial for them to pay to let another service transfer the licenses. Of course, this would benefit potential future competitors' market share. So I guess they think it would be better to screw their customers? (Granted, it's all a rumor so far)

My guess is that they're gonna. Google is starting to get a reputation for this, and this would be an ESPECIALLY egregious example. Nobody would ever buy a digital good from them again if they didn't do some version of this (lots of people are skittish about it already, but this would make it so much worse). I don't think it's "trivial" though. They probably have to do some negotiation with both Steam as well as each…

Yeah, if Google were to abandon the licenses then it would mean they'd just be giving up on gaming indefinitely. I don't see them doing that as all the big tech companies want to control the family room.

They're probably just going to rebrand it as "Chrome Games" and have people play in their browsers or any supported devices.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#236

Post by MichaelCollins »

OskarS wrote: post #204
havblue wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think it would be trivial for them to pay to let another service transfer the licenses. Of course, this would benefit potential future competitors' market share. So I guess they think it would be better to screw their customers? (Granted, it's all a rumor so far)

My guess is that they're gonna. Google is starting to get a reputation for this, and this would be an ESPECIALLY egregious example. Nobody would ever buy a digital good from them again if they didn't do some version of this (lots of people are skittish about it already, but this would make it so much worse). I don't think it's "trivial" though. They probably have to do some negotiation with both Steam as well as each…

I think Google already has a reputation for shutting things down prematurely, not just on HN but with consumers more generally. And I think that reputation is a big part of the reason why Stadia flopped. People knew this would happen so they never bought in, causing this to happen. A sort of self-fulfilling prophesy, but this outcome was very obvious from the start.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#237

Post by Wowfunhappy »

gambiting wrote: post #212
MichaelCollins wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to download a pirate's crack to play a game, you may as well download a pirate version of the game in the first place. I don't see much substantial difference between these two scenarios. Steam is a DRM system with good branding, that gamers treat as special because it comes from Valve. Anecdotally, a lot of gamers believe and trust that Valve would free their games of DRM if Valve ever went out of busine…

>>I don't see much substantial difference between these two scenarios. In one you paid for the product, in other you didn't. I'd think that's a pretty substantial difference?

But the product you're using isn't the one you bought.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#238

Post by ethbr0 »

srmarm wrote: post #214
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.

If google were going out of business I'd agree with you, but they're not. As a business they have plenty of money. What they're (possibly) doing is shutting this service to save some money. I suspect they'll refund or at least credit the relatively small number of people who purchased games on the service. It was always an odd setup to sell something for a fixed fee that potentially has an endless cost to deliver. Go…

The Google play would have been to track user gameplay. That's currently a large number of user-hours that Google is blind to, given they have no offering in the dedicated console space.

... that said, I'd expect the margins were far lower / cost was higher than what Google was used to, and they financially decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#239

Post by gadders »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #15

"there'd be no license transfer of any sort, which means that any purchases made on Stadia would effectively be nullified as the service closes down." It lasted less than three years and will leave players with nothing to show. This is what people were predicting when Stadia lauched and part of the reason why it had poor adoption.

You'll own nothing and you'll be happy.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#240

Post by MauranKilom »

fluoridation wrote: post #205
NikolaNovak wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how GoG works. That's not how steam works on its own. Steam explicitly a service where you buy a defined and limited license for permission to execute the files through proprietary framework that might one day disappear. Don't get me wrong, steam is my preferred digital delivery platform and where I play majority of my games. But I am under no illusion that gives me any sort of permanence (without potential ha…

You're not describing how Steam is meant to work, but rather how things are likely to play out for a lot of titles if Steam ever shuts down. Yes, if Steam shuts down, any game that (due to technical requirements) requires Steam to be up will be left unusable, and the customers will be left with pretty much no recourse. Not because legally they're not entitled to the products they paid for, but because it would be imp…

> No, Steam sells permanent licenses.

I don't know where you're getting this from.

To quote from https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/:

> [long list of things you can obtain/do via Steam] are referred to in this Agreement as "Content and Services;" the rights to access and/or use any Content and Services accessible through Steam are referred to in this Agreement as "Subscriptions."

> Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a non-exclusive license and right, to use the Content and Services for your personal, non-commercial use (except where commercial use is expressly allowed herein or in the applicable Subscription Terms). This license ends upon termination of (a) this Agreement or (b) a Subscription that includes the license.

> Valve may restrict or cancel your Account or any particular Subscription(s) at any time in the event that (a) Valve ceases providing such Subscriptions to similarly situated Subscribers generally, or (b) you breach any terms of this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use). In the event that your Account or a particular Subscription is restricted or terminated or cancelled by Valve for a violation of this Agreement or improper or illegal activity, no refund, including of any Subscription fees or of any unused funds in your Steam Wallet, will be granted.

There is zero legal entitlement to any given subscription in this agreement. The fact that they call it a "subscription", and that this is the "Subscriber Agreement" is not by accident. Rather, they explicitly reserve the right to cancel your "rights to access and/or use" their offers (aka subscriptions).

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