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Google is shutting down Stadia

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Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is keeping me from looking seriously at Flutter tbh. Go is safe, it has a community and ecosystem outside of Google, Flutter doesn't seem to be there yet.

Yes, and even worse, the nature of Flutter means its utility is especially vulnerable to abandonment. If Go were abandoned you could at least maintain your Go applications indefinitely, but since Flutter relies on its own UI engine it requires perpetual development to stay in sync with the evolving UI design language of iOS and Android.

It's even worse than that. Not only is keeping the UI updated a herculean task. It is written in a programming language (Dart) that virtually nobody outside of Google uses. Other than another giant tech company, no one could keep Flutter going if Google ever drops it.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google needs to restructure their incentives before it wrecks the company. I have no doubt whoever launched Stadia got promoted and then bounced to a different product and didn't care about whether Stadia was a success long term. Google's ad money printer masks the rot underneath, Google is literally a meme at this point for shutting down products. No serious business or developer is going to trust them. If governmen…

People have this idea that Google hasn't ever done anything successful beside search. Google experiments constantly and shuts down bad experiments. Experiments that probably aren't going anywhere for a long time: 1. Gmail 2. Maps (acquisition, but did not have a web interface and was not remotely popular prior) 3. Android (literally bought before the first launched devices) 4. Play Store 5. Cloud 6. Google Pay / Wall…

YouTube..

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#753
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

Google needs to restructure their incentives before it wrecks the company. I have no doubt whoever launched Stadia got promoted and then bounced to a different product and didn't care about whether Stadia was a success long term. Google's ad money printer masks the rot underneath, Google is literally a meme at this point for shutting down products. No serious business or developer is going to trust them. If governmen…

To be fair, Stadia was an astoundingly stupid idea for Google to get into, the fact that it was ever green lit is crazy to me. It fits nothing in their business model. At least the Google Pixel showcases Android and digs deep into their AI, etc. Stadia literally didn't do anything, but maybe use GCP in some way...but they didn't do it in the way Microsoft is, which is to lure gaming companies to use the cloud for their own development. It was dead before it ever launched.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#754
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

This is what drives my hesitancy toward subscribing any Google paid product. The company is very short-term focused and fickle on measuring the success of a product. They have the cash to throw at new problems, but they lack the stamina for any of their products to weather-out a storm. Google itself has the reputational problem of being weak on product longterm visions; that makes it a non-starter for buying into their mercurial fantasies.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#755
Beautiful observation on Ars Technica[1]: "Google's damaged reputation made the death of Stadia a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one buys Stadia games because they assume the service will be shut down, and Stadia is forced to shut down because no one buys games from it."

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/google-stadia-offici...

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#756
post #608

Unfortunately this doesn't surprise me. We worked on a Stadia title before launch. We were constantly reminded by Google how big the YouTube integration would be, which unique killer features we absolutely had to integrate with, and more. And non of that ever materialized after launch. If Google can't even convince their own internal teams to cooperate, how do they expect studios and consumers to care the slightest f…

IMO streaming games still has a lot of potential. Too bad Google couldn't pull it off. The Youtube stuff is only the surface of what would be possible.

> IMO streaming games still has a lot of potential.

Not with the current internet speed.

The vast majority of people is below anything that would play "okay", and almost everyone is below a speed that would play well (1 GBPS).

Until 1 GBPS is the default EVERYWHERE, streaming games has 0 potential.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google needs to restructure their incentives before it wrecks the company. I have no doubt whoever launched Stadia got promoted and then bounced to a different product and didn't care about whether Stadia was a success long term. Google's ad money printer masks the rot underneath, Google is literally a meme at this point for shutting down products. No serious business or developer is going to trust them. If governmen…

The thing that baffles me is that this has been a known issue for a long time, and yet there doesn't seem to be any significant moves to improve this. Can someone please explain what Sundar Pichai's big goals as a CEO are? That's a genuine question. He doesn't seem to be solving existing issues related to culture and incentives. And the company hasn't landed any big wins recently. I mostly see increased monetization…

It's really hard to diversify away from a major cash cow product. Everyone else's success gets compared to the cash machine. Ask for another 30 engineers to work on a product with only 100 MM profit, why aren't you more successful?

People get wise to this dynamic and just start selling dreams. Everyone can buy into the dream of the next Billion dollar product, it's harder to get buy-in to just grind out a measly 50% YoY growth.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#758
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

What I think happens in situations like these (from experience) is that the team is trying as hard as they can to prevent shutting down. And they either believe they'll succeed, or believe they can't succeed without boosting the expectation that they'll succeed by explicitly claiming they aren't shutting down. If you say, both to the public and to the team, that you might shut down but you're not sure yet, that's as…

I like this statement. It doesn't imply ill-will such as intentional lying or selfish intent as most other posts do. This statement simply shows that people are trying to make their projects succeed in a complicated environment.

From my experiences, most people are doing what they think is right. We should take more time understanding why people think what they are doing is right, even when we may perceive the action as immoral or wrong.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#759

Google's product strategy.. Google: We're going to launch a fancy new product in an already-crowded field, not market it at all, and everyone will jump on board and love it! Everyone else: No way, it's a PITA to port to, and knowing Google, they're going to sunset it soon. Google: No we won't, we're fully dedicated to this thing Everyone else: No way, they haven't added meaningful features in years and they're going…

I mostly agree with you, but I downvoted your comment because > We devoted an entire month of resources to this project and thought that was enough! ...is not just wildly inaccurate, but also disrespectful to the people who spent years working on it.

Dude, they're making half a million dollars a year, they're gonna be fine

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google needs to restructure their incentives before it wrecks the company. I have no doubt whoever launched Stadia got promoted and then bounced to a different product and didn't care about whether Stadia was a success long term. Google's ad money printer masks the rot underneath, Google is literally a meme at this point for shutting down products. No serious business or developer is going to trust them. If governmen…

The thing that baffles me is that this has been a known issue for a long time, and yet there doesn't seem to be any significant moves to improve this. Can someone please explain what Sundar Pichai's big goals as a CEO are? That's a genuine question. He doesn't seem to be solving existing issues related to culture and incentives. And the company hasn't landed any big wins recently. I mostly see increased monetization…

> Can someone please explain what Sundar Pichai's big goals as a CEO are?

His primary job is to keep the FTC at bay.

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