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Google is shutting down Stadia

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Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#201
post #25

At what point does working for Google (on anything released after 2008) go from being prestigious to embarrassing?

Why are so many of you here so bitter against this company?

I think it stems for their beginning. The Google search page was innovative, in showing that you didn't need to be flashy, just good at what you do. The same for Gmail, which was an awesome product and completely changed how people use email. Even the original Google ads where viewed extremely favorable, as it showed that you could make money on ads, without them being obnoxious.

Google was, for a long time, viewed as the answer to everything that was wrong with search, emails, ads, office work and much more. Rather than changing the world, Google adopted all the things we had hoped they'd save us from, just so they could make more money.

That being said, I just ignore anything coming from Google these days. The only two Google products I use are Google Maps and YouTube. Oh, three maybe as I do like Go.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#203
post #43

Just a couple of months ago. "Stadia is not shutting down. Rest assured we're always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro." https://twitter.com/GoogleStadia/status/1552989433590214656

From a cynical ex-Google employee, this would have translated to “Stadia still has more promotions to squeeze out”. Today’s message signals that it’s done its squeezing, permanently.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#204
For those of you who haven't tried it, it is the real deal. I've tried Xbox live, playstation streaming, etc. and Stadia's performance blows every single one out of the water. Even on 4g, performance is unbelievable.

You don't even need hardware or any account. You can play destiny for free.

It saddens me that this is going away but like most people, I'm not surprised.

I just hope that the technology doesn't go to waste.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#205
post #99
post #40

Google's reputation for not supporting things long term is finally starting to affect them in noticeable ways. Developers didn't onboard because they were afraid it would get shut down. It got shut down because no one onboarded.

It's a bit of a conundrum: every company is going to shut down products. What's the best way to launch new, risky things? Startups can simply go all in on the product, and if it fails, the company dissolves, though people rightly are hesitant to go with a fly by night startup for exactly that reason. I'm not even sure that Google has shut down more products than an equivalently sized company. But it's certainly shut…

> every company is going to shut down products

There's typically a fight, though.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#206

A lot of AAA games presumably got ported to Linux so that they would run on Stadia. Were those efforts funded by Google? I wonder if we saw more proper Linux game client releases as a result, and whether we'll see fewer Linux ports in the future.

> Were those efforts funded by Google?

Yes[1]. One clue (among hundreds of others) that Stadia was already dead months ago was when the ports dried up, indicating that the project had lost internal funding.

[1] https://gamerant.com/google-spent-millions-stadia-ports/

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#207
post #10
post #2

While inevitable, I am impressed they are refunding all purchases, including hardware. That can't be cheap.

I'm really curious the calculation here. That's a lot of money, and I'm certainly glad they're doing it, but feels both out of character for Google, and I'm surprised they have the budget allocated to just "doing the right thing". What goodwill is this saving that they aren't burning by shutting down Stadia?

1. Gamers are particularly vindictive

2. Highest probability of any product shutdown of this exploding "don't even bother, Google will just shut it down in a few years" into broad public consciousness

3. It's an enormous market and they know they'll want to try again

4. Maybe it's relatively not that much money. I would be surprised if I knew more than one or two people who'd ever even heard of Stadia

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#208
post #43

Just a couple of months ago. "Stadia is not shutting down. Rest assured we're always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro." https://twitter.com/GoogleStadia/status/1552989433590214656

So that was a lie

Like... maybe? Why does it have to be a lie instead of incompetence? They may have totally thought that back then, then changed their mind?

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#209

Anyone here use Stadia? Not much of a gamer but very interested in the tech of cloud gaming.

I was a user from the beginning.

For the casual gamer, cloud gaming is perfect - no large downloads, play from your TV or your PC or your iPad/phone when you have 30 minutes free and don't want to buy/build/maintain a PC or Console.

That said, I haven't played in around a year. The games catalog was too limited and they never got any of the AAA games (Call of Duty, EA games etc)

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#210
post #40

Google's reputation for not supporting things long term is finally starting to affect them in noticeable ways. Developers didn't onboard because they were afraid it would get shut down. It got shut down because no one onboarded.

I remember every single article when they first announced contained at least a few sentences wondering when Google would shut Stadia down. Because it was a Google project, Stadia was doomed from the start.

Google only knows how to do one business. Ads. Any Google product that isn't ad-supported dies, with very few exceptions.

Note that Google Cloud Services lose money. "Google Cloud is now approaching a $16 billion annual revenue run rate, but Google's ad business is likely to subsidize it for the foreseeable future."[1] AWS makes money in that business, but Google does not.

So, don't depend on Google Cloud for anything critical. Only a few months ago, Google was saying they were not going to shut down Stadia. So, any PR statement about Cloud not shutting down can't be believed. Stadia, after all, was a cloud service.

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