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Stadia died because no one trusts Google

techcrunch.com

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Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#131

Post by h0l0cube »

_zgx0 wrote: post #66

I feel like some of these perspectives are very tech industry focused rather than gamer focused. As a gamer, I think Stadia failed because the system they created doesn't make sense. You had to buy games at real $40-$60 prices but you could only play them through this limited service. I don't think anyone wants that. Compare that to paying the same price for a regular PC game which you can play via streaming using a…

> As a gamer, I think Stadia failed because the system they created doesn't make sense.

Google, Facebook, etc. are victims of early success. They made their billions on low hanging fruit, by throwing a lot of resources at problems with very high demand for a solution that weren't yet tackled well (e.g. query the internet, keep in touch with friends). So it's no wonder that in this day in age they are incapable of understanding product market fit, innovating, or competing in a market with competent players and a lower barrier to entry.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#132

Post by heavyset_go »

_HMCB_ wrote: post #120
_zgx0 wrote: post #66

I feel like some of these perspectives are very tech industry focused rather than gamer focused. As a gamer, I think Stadia failed because the system they created doesn't make sense. You had to buy games at real $40-$60 prices but you could only play them through this limited service. I don't think anyone wants that. Compare that to paying the same price for a regular PC game which you can play via streaming using a…

I’d be curious as to the elevator pitch presented to Google execs and why they bought into it. Wasn’t anyone thinking about the issues you brought up? Seems like fundamental issues. To think they spent millions and millions on this service only to close it down in short order. Typical Google but what other company does this repeatedly with 4-year precision.

I think some of Google's strategy is identifying new markets and potential rivals, and then throwing their resources at them until they dominate the market or buy/crush the competition. Building a sustainably profitable product is ancillary to that and not much of a factor initially.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#133

Post by eftychis »

To augment the article's perspective:

To add: Trust (lack of it) played a big role also, in the sense that to capitalize with Stadia, one needed to produce a quite different port of their game. I can imagine that making the decision to invest your developers' time on a new port and that being a product that its known track record is "https://killedbygoogle.com/."

But also google, as other sibling comments have pointed out also, did not integrate at all with their other products, did not offer more than some free games, had no offline offering -- I would pay 110% the price for physical + online access to the game for life.

They could have actually been a serious Steam competitor, they have the money to do so. Instead of supporting linux gaming, they went with their own approach. They did not offer a console, or hardware, besides the initial giveaway. Minute point, but doesn't help, when competition in the space gives weekly games, deep discounts and has a great API and track record.

Everyone knew they would fail, and they did, despite their resources, which tells us a lot. I think it is high time and paramount to retrospect and learn.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#134

Post by copperx »

chrisweekly wrote: post #69
manicdee wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reader, Wave, G+, Hangouts, Stadia and soon RCS. Never build a business on a Google project, only ever use Google as a side hustle.

why use it for a side hustle?

OP said "as a side hustle", not for. Perhaps OP resells Google services or Cloud offerings?

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#135

Post by zarzavat »

chii wrote: post #80
urthor wrote: post #65

The problem wasn't trust at all. Nobody in the gaming industry trusts anyone. Customers don't trust developers, see "never pre-order anything." Developers don't trust publishers, "executive meddling via focus groups." Publishers don't trust each other. The difference is publishers have lawyers so they write legal contracts to fix that. Google, Did, Not, Produce, The, Goods. Full-stop. Their service was light on conte…

stadia would've worked if it didn't charge per title. A subscription, which allowed you access to the entire library of games in stadia, akin to netflix, is a compelling product.

Games require a lot of upfront investment. Games are not like music where top hits are routinely created in a day or two. Nobody is making a game on the off-chance that they will collect enough pennies from plays on a streaming service. Anybody making a game, be it indie or AAA, is investing years and $$$, and they need that big payday on release.

Even Netflix mostly funds their own content. A “Netflix for games” would involve Google funding exclusive games to be made for their platform.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#136

Post by cududa »

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #126
cududa wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You having fun/ being able to develop fast isn't your customer's problem/ the problem's of people actually using the things you build. Windows Vista devs with 8GB of DDR2 when real world customers had 512mb of DDR learned this lesson hard. EDIT: Also - client side native software and web dev are insanely different. Web/ serverside people seem to disregard this. Constantly.

> You having fun/ being able to develop fast isn't your customer's problem/ the problem's of people actually using the things you build. I cannot parse this sentence. What does vista having its minimum requirements poorly defined have to do with being forced to develop on underpowered hardware? If my boss says “we are giving you a worse machine because we think that will make you write better code” I am out of there.…

Tell me you've never developed native applications outside an iOS simulator, or OS development without telling me...

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#137

Post by liquidgecka »

cududa wrote: post #20
aeturnum wrote: post #14

The thing that I find odd about Google is that it feels like they drink their own coolaid. Reports I've seen suggest that nearly no one knew this was coming. Teams who have been working on ports for months were blind-sided. Employees generally did not know. It just seems like a very poor way to run a business. It feels sloppy and needlessly messy. Especially when providing soft landings is so possible for a company w…

Obviously this isn't the same thing, but yes - this seems right. But, I remember my first time going to Google's campus in 2010 and connecting to their guest wifi network. 1Gbps! Insanely cool! Pulled up gmail and google docs and it worked PERFECTLY! My first thought was "...oh this is why their webapps suck - they have no idea how it's being used in the real world where latency is above 10ms"

Okay, something I can speak too! (Though I left in 2009 but it's close enough)

I was a SRE on Gmail, and I can assure you that the experience for devs was not great intentionally. We had a pool of dedicated machines that ran various versions specifically used for development. I made sure those where always on our worst clusters (slowest CPUs and disks) so the dev experience was always the worst case scenario for performance. :-)

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#138

Post by cududa »

copperx wrote: post #122
Our_Benefactors wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would happen is those engineers would rightly be concerned that their leadership had lost their marbles, and would quickly find new jobs elsewhere. These kinds of “fun” thought experiments don’t pan out in the real world.

It's a matter of tact. They could say, "Here are your 32GB RAM machines. Your old one? You get to keep it too. Make sure Chrome works perfectly on your old machine."

This is how it should go. Not setting the high perf machine as a benchmark.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#139

Post by acomjean »

echelon wrote: post #118
bitexploder wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam games I bought a decade ago are still in my library. Steam is trusty. Google is not.

Nevermind Steam, nevermind Google, nevermind Apple. I'm sick that you can't buy ("license") something on one platform and then immediately use it on another. I understand that the platform costs and taxes are meant to recoup development and upkeep (to a certain extent), but it still pisses me off as a consumer. If I buy ("license") a game or movie on Google, I should be able to watch it on Netflix or play it on Steam…

When I have something in my steam library I seem to be able to use it on any platform it runs on.

My knowledge about this is limited to a couple board game programs I used to use on a Mac and now run on Linux.

It’s not gog type freedom from drm but it seems to be cross platform. Well of course not on iOS….

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#140

Post by Our_Benefactors »

cududa wrote: post #136
Our_Benefactors wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You having fun/ being able to develop fast isn't your customer's problem/ the problem's of people actually using the things you build. I cannot parse this sentence. What does vista having its minimum requirements poorly defined have to do with being forced to develop on underpowered hardware? If my boss says “we are giving you a worse machine because we think that will make you write better code” I am out of there.…

Tell me you've never developed native applications outside an iOS simulator, or OS development without telling me...

Do you actually have something to add to the discussion? Or you just want to take potshots at me?

You’re all over the place. Please explain why you think using underpowered hardware is the only legitimate way to write software that works on that hardware.

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