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Stadia died because no one trusts Google

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Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#311
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, completely agree, same here. I don't touch Google products any more, and it's mostly because I don't trust they will remain available. I only use the products that are very unlikely to go away quickly. Search, Gmail and Android. I'd like to get off Gmail for other reasons, but it's a pain. And I mostly use DuckDuckGo for search these days.

> I'd like to get off Gmail for other reasons, but it's a pain. I used to think that, but I was actually surprised how easy it was to get off GMail. I gave Fastmail my credit card number, clicked a few buttons in their UI to get my mail transferred over, moved my MX records, and I was done. I ended up migrating contacts, too, but that was just a couple more clicks in Fastmail's UI, as they have an OAuth flow that int…

Exactly! When I finally do migrate, it will use my own domain.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't XBOX with gamepass for $25/month all in be a more compelling competition?

It would depend on the games you play. For example Stadia got games like Assassin's Creed and Cyberpunk 2077 that Xbox Game Pass still doesn't. Their streaming service is still limited to Game Pass games only.

> Their streaming service is still limited to Game Pass games only.

Earlier this year Microsoft announced[1] that they are going to be allowing cloud enabled games that you own to be played without them needing to be Gamepass games.

[1] https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/06/09/whats-next-for-gaming... (section titled Get More Out of Your Xbox Game Pass Membership, just over halfway down)

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I buy a console I usually wait until it’s had some price drops and then there’s really only a few games I want to play. And because I waited so long these too are at a steep discount. These days, that means there’s so much content with DLCs and the base game that it could take me over a year to finish a AAA title. If I could just play the game and not worry about the hardware, I’d be tempted as long as the servi…

Now that I think about it, Stadia launched into an extremely favourable market where both GPUs and next-gen consoles were unobtainium and 'price drops' are a thing of legend, but they still couldn't make it work. Any other time without that advantage and they'd have failed even harder.

They barely tried though. Did they expect to rival Xbox, Play Station and Nintendo in 2 years with their shitty reputation and without a AAA exclusive game? Were they even prepared to invest in the platform at all?

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Larry and Sergei This may be part of the problem. Google was founded by algorithm nerds, and that's now part of the DNA of the company. Apple (Tesla/Starlink/etc) was founded upon vision - what could the future look like? How do I make that happen today? - and then, somehow, to pare that back to something that's economically viable in a reasonable time frame. That said, taking existing problems and trying to better…

> Google was founded by algorithm nerds, and that's now part of the DNA of the company. Not any more. These days their DNA is ads.

And ads need algorithms

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#316
post #291

No, it died because it was mismanaged as a product. There were technical issues when it launched but more importantly, there never was a good strategy for content. So, the catalogue was a combination of expensive and lacking in titles. I tried it out briefly because on paper it wasn't a bad idea. Except the free games were mostly not worth the money and the paid games were the same price as actually buying the games.…

> there never was a good strategy for content Which was ultimately a tech driven chicken and egg problem. I know someone who is the lead for a popular game. They said they'd need to drop DirectX and effectively port the game to Linux to get Stadia working, which wasn't worth it for the user base.

Google could have easily paid some game studios to produce content. MS and Sony would not dream of launching new hardware without some decent launch titles. And it's not like Sony uses directx or windows. Neither does Nintendo.

Google came empty handed to what is a very competitive space. It's all about the games. That's not a technical problem but a doomed product strategy. They failed to engage with game developers to develop for their platform.

And of course valve had the same issue and and actually fixed it. Many games run fine on Linux these days with Steam. That could have worked for Google as well.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do have video streaming down. YouTube is still a great product IMO.

Youtube is not great by any objective measure, but they are the only worthwhile player in town.

That seems like it is great, along the measure of “economically viable”.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#318
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 mean you are right, but on top of that I would not have trusted google to keep that service going. Generally I guess it is very unwise to trust any streaming service to keep going indefinitely, because there will always come a point where some old game is more work to support than it is worth.

If we gave some gamer the funds to run the gaming equivalent of archive.org I might have more trust in the service. Earning money and archiving cultural goods for future generations are not easily compatible goals.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#319

No, it died because it was mismanaged as a product. There were technical issues when it launched but more importantly, there never was a good strategy for content. So, the catalogue was a combination of expensive and lacking in titles. I tried it out briefly because on paper it wasn't a bad idea. Except the free games were mostly not worth the money and the paid games were the same price as actually buying the games.…

It’s a reoccurring event though, people don’t trust Google because they kill so many services.

They kill so many products because they mismanage them and they then fail to get a lot of users. A lot of the things they kill simply aren't very good. Trust has nothing to do with it.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they won't use one iota of their largess to help you deal with the consequences of their actions. Google's refunding all Stadia game and hardware purchases. Disclosure: I work at Google, but not on Stadia.

IMO no need for a disclosure if you're just stating a single fact.

I think it's better to err on the side of caution. By stating that fact you're defending Google, might be open that you work for the organisation.
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