It's quite the precedent they are setting by issuing refunds on the hardware. Presumably dodging a class action, but interesting nonetheless
Google is shutting down Stadia
791–800 of 1001 posts
Re: Google is shutting down Stadia
#792Google killing something unrelated to search or advertising? Say it isn't so!
Re: Google is shutting down Stadia
#793You know it's gonna be bad news when you see a title like that. I've always been bearish on game streaming because it's just not practically, physically possible to solve the problem of input lag. Even an extra 10ms is going to be noticeable and unacceptable for many games.
I’ll disagree on that. An extra 10ms is not perceptible in 99% (99.9%?) of cases. Consider that a good gaming monitor has input lag of ~3ms, a TV in game mode has input lag of ~12ms, and in regular mode the input lag is >100ms. I would argue that our brain is just really good at correcting for minuscule timings like that, and less than 1% of the population could even tell the difference between 20ms and 30ms lag. I’v…
> 10ms is not perceptible . . . less than 1%
The popularity of 120hz gaming would beg to differ, everyone I know who games on a PC has a high refresh rate monitor and can easily tell if their game isn’t running with optimal fps. High refresh rate is certainly something you adapt to, so you might be right about the general population, but were talking specifically about gamers here. And the fact that high refresh rate panels are coming into phones makes me much more doubtful that it’s just gamers. Human beings heavily rely on reaction time just by being bipedal(tripping and not catching yourself can mean death).
Also, Highly responsive systems are just more fun, see also cars.
Agree that many casual people don’t care much, but casual people also tend to rely on more knowledgeable friends, or wouldn’t be in the know enough to try out a streaming game service that wasn’t advertised much.
Re: Google is shutting down Stadia
#794Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Stadia ran (runs) well at 50mbps, and their competitors don't require much more (~100mbps for comparable results afaict), and 2x that minimum often results in a flawless experience if you have the bandwidth/latency to back it up (e.g. if you're on a home/work connection, rather than a busy coffee shop).
I put almost 1,000 hours into Stadia across all my games travelling across ~20 states and 3 countries the past ~3 years. It's very rare to find places where it isn't "okay" to play (with some notable exceptions near launch where you'd regularly get ~1 second input delay at times or frozen, pixellated graphics), and in many places now it feels indistinguisable from native/local games.
I don't know which platform I'll move to from Stadia, but it will definitely be a cloud one.
Re: Google is shutting down Stadia
#795While inevitable, I am impressed they are refunding all purchases, including hardware. That can't be cheap.
I deleted my Stadia account a few months ago, and it had $400 in purchases. I assume that I won’t be getting the refund. Oh well, RIP.
Re: Google is shutting down Stadia
#796Everybody is talking about how terrible Google and their culture is, so I'll just put it out there that this is great news for gamers. Cloud-based gaming services are a terrible deal for gamers. Gamers shouldn't cede so much control to some 3rd party who will be watching over their shoulder and collecting every scrap of data on them and their friends while they play. We don't need our performance in games being used…
How is a terrible deal? I would literally need to spend at least a 1000 dollars for a gaming pc, and that is 4 years of GeForce now, without considering maintenance, the space, etc. I’m playing cyberpunk 2077 max settings on a 2cm thick MacBook Pro, I don’t have a bulky pc to move every time I move, and most importantly, if I ever get bored I’ll simply stop paying instead of having a pc collecting dust
The problem is that you have minimal control of your game. If Google bans your YouTube account b/c your video of you walking your dog recorded a restaurant playing a copyrighted song, then you could also lose your entire collection of games.
Re: Google is shutting down Stadia
#797Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK, you know a minister will be sacked soon when the Prime Minister publicly announced they "have her full confidence"...
Same for German politicans
wrong. german parasites can literally do what they want. they get away with (almost) everything.
Re: Google is shutting down Stadia
#798Earlier 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…
Google Drive (2012) and Google Photos (2015).
Re: Google is shutting down Stadia
#799Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically, I bet if that Stadia would've done much better if it had launched with the promise of "if we do shut it down, we'll refund all your purchases"
Or at least use a business model that didn't require your customers to put complete trust in the fact that you wouldn't shutdown, when you have a reputation for killing projects. I'm not a hardcore gamer and have a pretty weak desktop by gaming standards. If this was setup like an all-you-can-eat subscription, or an al-carte rental, I would have jumped on it in a heartbeat, and if it went away, oh well, I got what I…
what's also important here is that people are very invested in the ownership of their games, probably more so than they are of their films/their music.
'your games' are intrinsically tied to your saves in those games; your characters, your items, all the bullshit grinding you did once and never want to have to do ever again. in a very real sense, "You" are in your games in a way that isn't true of movies or music or the other formats of media that have been relinquished to the cloud.
Re: Google is shutting down Stadia
#800Earlier 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…
There is literally only one service I use from google and I’m actively sunsetting that use : Gmail. I never go there for search and I can’t think of another tool of theirs I use…
If you go on any website that uses adsense, Google's real customers are using their services on you. The rest is just to feed the beast. I got suckered, I loved my very early invite only Gmail account. Not sure my protonmail isn't just more of the same performative 'i'm a techie and using the fashionable thing" but can I ever escape that?