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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

#611

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Sundar is doing what the shareholders want. Grow ads revenue while distracting regulators from a google anti trust lawsuit.

Good tech CEOs also plan for the long term. Google needs a near-death experience to get some management discipline.

I’m not sure there exists any business that is as high of revenue and margin as ads. So google cannot diversify without impacting its financials.

You could argue bezos was a genius in this regard by religiously avoiding disclosing to wall street his true margins.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#612
post #460

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What? The streaming games market started way before Google (OnLive, Sony, etc.) and now it's mostly Nvidia and Microsoft. Google entered late, never invested much in it, never advertised much... they just totally botched the execution and their competitors got all the players. Nvidia's service is getting better all the time.

Not sure where I said Google was first in this space?

Yikes, sorry! I replied to the wrong post. Meant to reply to your parent instead (the same one you quoted). I apologize.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#613

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Exactly. Lol I'm just imagining a company trying to use their chat services. "OK guys sorry, I know we just did this three weeks ago, but they've launched a new chat service and are deprecating the old one. Yeah, again. What's new? Uh... there's a new logo this time. And you can install it as a progressive web app."

They overcompensate by plugging chat functionality in every app. Maps, GPay India and Drive all have chat features

A few years ago, they added a compatibility layer for Google Talk inside Hangouts, which I think then became Meet.

In other words... they built a chat app inside their chat app.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#614

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People do cloud games all the time. Steam and geforce now and xcloud are great. We just don't trust Google because they don't give a damn. Stadia was never marketed much and always had a tiny library with no cross play. The moment Nvidia stepped up, Stadia was dead.

Stadia has crossplay on several games now, though I absolutely agree their marketing has been an embarrassment. All I could think during the entire pandemic was how Google should be showing off how easy it is to play games on Stadia. Lower the initial barrier to entry just a smidge and it could have been as simple as texting a link to your family groupchat and then you're all playing a game together in your browser.…

Yeah, that was always the dream, but I don't know how they botched the execution so hard. All the technology for that was already there, especially with their controllers and Google TV, but they just never finished connecting the dots. Why? It beats me. They got 80% of the way there and then just... stopped caring?

It's like they had a team of awesome engineers who built the thing but... no gamers? Like it just seemed that nobody at Google, on or off the Stadia team, actually wanted it to grow beyond tech demo status. Their library is still laughably small, years later, and only very very few games offer crossplay.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stadia has crossplay on several games now, though I absolutely agree their marketing has been an embarrassment. All I could think during the entire pandemic was how Google should be showing off how easy it is to play games on Stadia. Lower the initial barrier to entry just a smidge and it could have been as simple as texting a link to your family groupchat and then you're all playing a game together in your browser.…

Maybe better said as 'several games provided on stadia have crossplay'. I wonder if there is a better model of a user buying a license for a game, specifically a non-'live service' style game, and being able to use that on any platform that they provide the game for. I find myself buying two copies of more than a few games these days. Mostly picking it up on a more mobile platform like the switch after buying it on t…

I've seen this model work, primarily on digital tabletop games and their DLCs. Like you might have to buy the base game on each platform (which is usually pretty cheap) but then all the expansion packs are tied to your game account and work anywhere.

I think Uplay works similarly, and you can cross play and cross save with your sub on any device.

Microsoft GamePass is moving towards a similar direction, where your sub lets you cross play and save between PC, Xbox, cloud, and Android (via the cloud).

I dunno why Google never bothered doing that. Stadia tech wise is actually really impressive and comparable to nvidia's offering, with much better UX, but they just gave up almost immediately after launch. What a missed opportunity :(

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#616
post #445

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> they know they don't have a license to do what they're promising Do they not? Did you read the terms for publishing a game on Steam? I didn’t, but it’s within reason it contains a provision for just this eventuality.

Such a term would be poison to most game developers, particularly in the early days of Steam when it had nothing more than a handful of first party games. Before Steam achieved market dominance, how would they have convinced third party developers to accept it? Unless somebody shows me that term in the contracts, I don't believe it exists. It doesn't make sense for it to exist; the only reason to think it does is bec…

> how would they have convinced third party developers to accept it?

Present it as a feature?

“In the event of the dissolution of Steam/Valve, we will endeavour to do everything reasonable to ensure that previously purchased licenses to your content keep working for subscribers in the absence of the Steam platform.”

Just because they try to keep it working doesn’t mean they have to make it DRM free (e.g. copyable between all computers without any checks).

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#617
post #331

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I doubt they'll credit anyone. Why would they? You purchased a license to play a game through their service. Their service is no longer there. I haven't gone through any terms of service for Stadia but I can't imagine that they aren't covered for this.

They can put what they want in the TOS but they are selling to consumers in jurisdictions around the world and if it stops working so soon then they were clearly 'selling' something that wasn't fit for purpose. They could have sold it time limited or laid out their limitations if they wanted to protect themselves but they didn't. I used the service and as a techie knew it wasn't really sustainable but the average con…

I'm not so convinced. Maybe in the EU, but that would be it, certainly I think in the US you'd be fucked for sure. It might be cheaper in the short term to pay out vs the worst case scenario of fighting this, but they may never even get sued, the case may get thrown out if they do, it may be in their interest to protect that precedent on TOS and fight it in court, etc.

I'm not saying Google won't pay out, but I just think there's a lot of reasons why they might not.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#619

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Yeah, I'm always very skeptical of new Google services. I use GSuite and Chromebooks, but I know those are heavily used internally at Google and I believe that they'll continue to invest in those. But every other service, nah. Between their inability to provide support while a service is up and their consistent lack of long term vision/ investment for the services they create, it's just not worth it. I can't imagine…

Have you tried the most recent ms office suite updates. Give it a solid month of use before brushing it off. Can’t say google workspaces is better.

The GSuite + Chromebook integration is really nice.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#620
post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's denial takes nothing away from the credibility of this rumor. Google isn't going to deviate from their own preplanned PR campaign on any product's demise just because a rumor leaked. That doesn't mean this rumor is true, only that the denial has no informational content for evaluating the rumor. Yet on the other hand, if Google really wanted to refute the rumor , they'd say "It's not true, we have a firm roa…

>Google's denial takes nothing away from the credibility of this rumor. Let this comment sink in for a while. An official comment from Stadia "takes nothing away" from an anonymous source with no track record or credibility whatsoever. >Yet on the other hand, if Google really wanted to refute the rumor They did something worse - they mocked it and exposed it for the ridiculous rumour it was.

> An official comment from Stadia "takes nothing away" from an anonymous source with no track record or credibility whatsoever.

Yes sometimes those with inside knowledge are covering their tracks. NDAs and such.

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