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Google is shutting down Stadia

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Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#771

Post by sjs382 »

goldenManatee wrote: post #754
vyrotek wrote: 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 the…

I used Stadia super casually, despite buying the Founder's Edition as soon as it was available. I bought maybe 5 games at very steep discounts and maybe played them for 1-4 hours each.

With that said, the way they're handling this shutdown gives me LESS hesitancy re: consumer entertainment purchases. Granting full, automatic refunds is the vest way this can be handled, period.

Now, developer services are another story... Winding down a service that I rely on (rather than just being entertained by) would cause me more work, on their schedule.

But still, I have slightly more trust that they'll handle similar things well in the future.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#772

Post by johannes1234321 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #688
ren_engineer wrote: post #411

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…

> 1. Gmail

2004

> 2. Maps

2005

> 3. Android

2008

> 4. Play Store

Elementary component of the Android business, but well: also 2008

> 5. Cloud

2008 (also)

> 6. Google Pay / Wallet

A requirement for Play Store, but relaunch as general payment solution: 2011

Now the current year is 2022. And yes, they did improvements here and there and in cloud launched more services, but anything big new, with a chance of survival?

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#773

Post by bongoman37 »

ren_engineer wrote: post #411
vyrotek wrote: 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…

I think ads are the equivalent of resource curse [1] for Google. It is so successful that it is kind of like oil gushing from the ground funding all sorts of inefficiencies that otherwise would be unsustainable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#775

Post by enos_feedler »

ren_engineer wrote: post #411
vyrotek wrote: 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…

I know some of the leads. One key guy I know bounced from Google completely right after Stadia went live. This is classic Google cool tech bad business/product

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#776

Post by johannes1234321 »

freeopinion wrote: post #552
ren_engineer wrote: post #411

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…

It's curious to me that there hasn't been an evolution in re-exit strategies. You want to get bought by Google, then sold by Google. Why don't we hear about something getting sold off by Google instead of just shut down? Is it just a given that if Google can't make it work, nobody can?

There is one case: Google acquired Keyhole (Google Earth), John Hanke then built Ingress/Niantic which is a spunoff company (where Google afaik still holds some shares) doing quite well with PokemonGo it seems (while they had to stop their Catan project and killed off their Harry Potter game)

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#777

Post by iroh2727 »

ren_engineer wrote: post #411
vyrotek wrote: 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…

Well, we also gotta look at Google's outside incentives, those of being a monopoly. At the end of the day, it's not the most efficient use of resources to innovate internally at a monopoly (better uses include M&A, competitor sabotage, and sales/marketing, which they've of course also done).

Anyways, Google I think has been trying to maintain a semblance of its early culture of innovation so as to attract talent/applicants, to not cause too much internal turmoil, and to make investors think it is still an "innovation" company. Also, because growth comes with bloat and bureaucracy, so may as well have that bloat come up with new products.

Google will never be fixed internally to be its former self or a company centered on innovation because that's just not how monopolies work... Maybe once they capsize (which hopefully they do because monopolies are toxic and anti-competitive), they can once again become an innovator, like with Apple's early capsizing which led to them bringing Steve Jobs back.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#778

Post by seizethegdgap »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #688
ren_engineer wrote: post #411

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…

| 6. Google Pay / Wallet

Since Google Wallet launched in 2011, they added a physical card, replaced that card with Android Pay, dropped NFC and limited it to Android Pay, merged Google Wallet and Android Pay into Google Pay, launched Tez in India and then rebranded that to Google Pay (which was an entirely different app than the first Google Pay), then rebranded the first Google Pay as Google Wallet, while people in India still use their Google Pay app.

I think. I still can't make sense of it.

Imagine being a store/vendor and trying to make sense of which app your POS supports while just trying to run your business, what an absolute nightmare.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Pay_Send

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wallet

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Pay_(mobile_app)

https://www.androidpolice.com/google-pay-becomes-google-wall...

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#779

Post by totsuzen »

MrWiffles wrote: post #228
dougmwne wrote: post #198

I am more entertained by this than I should be. Back when Stadia launched I was in a Reddit thread saying that the blatant double-dip business model of subscriptions + purchase stunk and that I had no faith in Google to not shut this storefront down shortly. I was immediately roasted by a flock of obvious astroturfers telling me that this was an absolutely serious move by Google to dominate the console games market a…

> This company is a bloated rotting carcass. The regulators should chop it up and feed it to the seagulls. Hey man, there's no need to be cruel toward animals here! ;-)

· didn’t “gain the traction with users that we expected.” · >> GCP : I'm scared out of my mind

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#780

Post by Ecstatify »

partiallypro wrote: post #753
ren_engineer wrote: post #411

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…

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 the…

The whole point was to diversify their business model. The tech behind Stadia is very impressive, I could play Cyberpunk 2077 on my TV/Mobile/iPAD/Mac with no lag in 4K. Stadia integrated into YouTube could have been a Twitch competitor. With Covid it could have been the perfect time to really launch the product when no one could buy a PS5/XBOX. Google didn't invest in games, closed down their own game studio. It's reminiscent of Windows Phone having no apps.
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