Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stadia died because no one trusts Google

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 626 posts

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#421

Post by [deleted] »

technion wrote: post #339
kelnos wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I've always used a custom domain not with google, but the reason I would find it hard to get off gmail is the list of sites that only offer a 'login with gmail' with the only alternative being 'login with facebook'. And the list is getting consistently bigger, with many developers getting in on the trend of "passwords are too risky, just let Google handle it". If there is ever a day Google turns off sso for free Gmai…

[deleted]

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#422

Post by Macha »

heavyset_go wrote: post #208
GekkePrutser wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in this case they didn't do any of that?

I see it as a foray into the cloud gaming market and a way to stifle competition. Once Google throws its weight into the game, it might be harder for smaller companies to keep up or even secure enough funding to compete. It's not always going to work out, but I do think Google's actions helped stifle competition in that market. Google could have successfully stopped another company from blowing up in that market and…

It certainly made publishers put pressure on nvidia to block their games from its "stream your own steam library" service, because it gave them the idea they could get service exclusivity bonuses and full retail price for the privilege, something I doubt they'll roll back just because that model has failed for now

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#423

Post by ghaff »

_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…

The "average" gamer/consumer doesn't want to fuss with any special gamer hardware or upgrading PCs. They may not even know what a GPU is. And they probably accept that there are lots of things that they can't do with bad internet most of which they care about a lot more than games.

The idea of Stadia made a lot of sense to me when I first heard of it. I guess the implementation wasn't very good though.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#424

Post by Waterluvian »

ghaff wrote: post #423
_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…

The "average" gamer/consumer doesn't want to fuss with any special gamer hardware or upgrading PCs. They may not even know what a GPU is. And they probably accept that there are lots of things that they can't do with bad internet most of which they care about a lot more than games. The idea of Stadia made a lot of sense to me when I first heard of it. I guess the implementation wasn't very good though.

In fact, that’s such the case that the average gamer just uses a tablet or phone.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#425

Post by thrwyoilarticle »

KVFinn wrote: post #90

There are advantages to game streaming but Google never really did anything with them, instead they just made a worse version of a console. The marketing at the beginning was confusing. Everyone had the impression Stadia was like a Netflix for games. But it was almost the inverse, Stadia is a free gaming console but the games cost money. At the very least Google's number one pitch should have been "We're giving you a…

> Any YouTube game video could have a button for 'play instantly, one click' that loaded an already running Stadia session into a game-state with the player in a fun spot.

I think the tech that this feature requires would be a huge thing for computing in general. Easy, lightweight state-saves for any program. Quick hibernation for any game. Imagine how much easier the Windows update problem would be if users knew they could open everything as it was before in a few seconds.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#426

Post by Macha »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #191
8note wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get some windows app, it's possible that you will be able to run it on Linux. If I can get it to run, licensing shouldn't be another road block

In a parallel universe there's an Apple equivalent of WINE. It'd probably be called CIDER.

It exists, it's called darling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darling_(software)

It's never been as reliable as Apple platforms are way more of a moving target, so it's never got as feature complete and dependable as wine

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#427

Post by invader »

It died because it solved the problem nobody really had. It's Startup 101.

Who said hardware is the problem? Modern consoles are relatively cheap, especially considering modern $60 price tags on games. So why Stadia tried to solve that?

I'm sure Google has a lot of brilliant engineers who can build a state-of-the-art streaming platform that can leverage existing Google cloud infrastructure. But that's all it is - a brilliant piece of technology nobody really needs. And not that innovative as well - I've met a bunch of game streaming startups back at Jan 2016 CES, something like two years prior the launch of Stadia, so the idea has been around for quite a while.

Hardcore gamers are buying a lot of overpriced gaming gear all the time. I can't see how people spending thousands of $ on tuned hardware suddenly would want to change all that on a faceless streaming platform. Ownership and belonging is a big part of that subculture.

Stadia could make sense for a casual gamer who doesn't want to invest into expensive hardware. But games a casual player plays are not GPU-heavy and work fine on any relatively modern platform.

Too basic for a hardcore gamer, too powerful and demanding for a casual one. The Stadia's fate was sealed.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#428

Post by thrwyoilarticle »

DharmaPolice wrote: post #322
mediumiqsad wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s intentional, it’s a way to brag. They don’t need to at all. There’s a reason why nobody at other companies does that - people at other companies are normal and don’t think they’re gods gift to the world.

If you search for "Disclosure I work at Microsoft" site:news.ycombinator.com you get 300+ results.

Though Xicrosofter returns none.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#429

Post by elrobinto »

Geee wrote: post #313

I think this tech would work for very well for game demos. Google could repurpose this tech, so that people could play game demos integrated in ads.

They did this with Resident Evil Village - I thought that would be an awesome experience to play it on my underpowered work laptop - it just didn't work though, not sure if it didn't like my browser or their servers were overloaded.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#430

Post by encryptluks2 »

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #259
encryptluks2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is just opportunism. The cool thing these days seems hating on Google, even if you have a really poor reason. It is just confirmation bias for those that have tried to convince themselves that Google is a failure despite their profits literally showing they are not failing as a business.

A business built around extracting a non-renewable resource can make record profits while still being doomed in the long-term. In this case, the resource Google may be unsustainably harvesting is consumer goodwill and partner trust.

I don't think so. Firefox has been on a mission for some time to try to market itself as the safe browser despite Chromium being open source and have roughly the same telemetry enabled by default in both. Shutting down a consumer service like Stadia isn't all bad.. in all honesty I think it is the most disappointing to people who used it on a regular basis and not some person to come by and give their two cents about how they feel Google wronged them for something unrelated.

People liked Stadia and that is why this is hard on some people but the are not going to jump on the Google hate train over every dramatic event that is often just hyperbole. They'll remember Google for creating something awesome and ahead of it's time, and Google may actually revamp that to scale to personal gaming that runs on local hardware instead.

I believe a lot of game services streaming services just aren't that profitable. The hardware required to stream games to consumers in HD or 4k is expensive. Heck, just a few months ago I was looking at graphics cards and the lower end were still priced around $600 for a modern consumer graphics card. Then having a bunch of servers and ways to dedicate those to users using some form of graphics sharing and doing to with very little latency cost a fortune and probably didn't produce the revenue because of that.

I'd people are leaving Google or this then they can certainly try make an appealing argument about how Stadia damaged them but that Netflix, Hulu, etc don't ever pivot their plans and pricings

Post reply on HN