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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

#481

Post by ShamelessC »

thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #425
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 the…

The new consoles both have this exact feature thanks to shipping with SSDs.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#482

Post by ShamelessC »

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…

This strains plausibility. Do you want to cite these reports you mention?

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#483

Post by aerotwelve »

labster wrote: post #8

It’s the final day of the free tier of Google Apps they promised they would never take away from me. I run a web search where the engine ignores my excluded terms[1]. Sad. But the I log into Gmail. Another redesign, thank goodness! Too bad I can’t XMPP message my friends to tell them about it. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=49ers+-football+-nfl

After starting to ignore the "not" operator, I can't wait until Google decides it no longer has to listen to the double quote "exact phrase" operator so I can finally ditch it for good.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#485

Post by smallerdemon »

When Google first appeared on the tech scene, a lot of us were excited to have a great tool for search that actually kicked back relevant things you needed. And they toyed with great experiments, most of which are all dead except for the most boring of them: the traditional productivity suite of email, documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. (For the record, I have never seen or heard of a single person in my entire knowledge of Google ever use Slides.) Of course, Chromebooks and Chrome as well (but...).

Their missteps are so public and feel so egregious, and that's what this article is underscoring. Great and fun things that clearly they are not able to monetize, no matter how much they throw into it. Yet the things that they go all in on are usually things no one actually needs or wants, such as Google Plus and Stadia. Instead, as again pointed out by the article, Google puts out great experiments that people love, and the management and marketing at Google simply are never able to get their shit together to monetize those things in ways to make the products profitable enough to keep around, such as the article-mentioned Reader (which I am also still bitter about), and just destroying other great tools like Picasa to hoist less useful web-based generic experiences upon the user base they build up.

Google is really, truly, at this point so many years into their existence, an afterthought for most end users. When non-tech people say Google they mean Chrome almost 100% of the time. They mean a web browser. People still have and use yahoo.com and aol.com emails more than anyone thinks, and gmail might be Google's second most successful product after Chrome, but for a grand majority, Google = Chrome.

The Google Graveyard site exists for a reason. https://killedbygoogle.com/

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#486

Post by softwaredoug »

There certainly is a product management lesson in here

It’s not enough to launch a product, you need conviction, and skin in the game, that the product is a good idea. And when your bets don’t pay off, you need to pivot like your life depends on it.

Google could never succeed with stadia (or other big bets) if there’s little downside risk for those involved to its failure. Instead of digging deep and getting creative with the model, they can shrug and give up.

You can’t give people amazing comfort and stability then expect them to take outsized risks.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#487

Post by tester756 »

smallerdemon wrote: post #485

When Google first appeared on the tech scene, a lot of us were excited to have a great tool for search that actually kicked back relevant things you needed. And they toyed with great experiments, most of which are all dead except for the most boring of them: the traditional productivity suite of email, documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. (For the record, I have never seen or heard of a single person in my ent…

what?

I'd say that when people say Google they mean

search, youtube, android/gmail, maps

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#488

Post by Jochim »

300bps wrote: post #470
chongli wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their solution was anything but, and it was truly innovative (at the time) and their success was well deserved. It was totally low hanging fruit. Try building a search engine today. The barriers to entry are much harder. Finding useful sites and filtering out spam are much more difficult now than when Google started. The signal to noise ratio on the internet has plummeted. And that is just the difficulty of building…

Try building a search engine today. The barriers to entry are much harder. I’ve often heard the saying how “everything easy has already been invented” and that it’s so much harder today to invent new things. I think it’s a fallacy. Things were just as hard in the past. I owned an ISP in 1998 and there were plenty of search engines at the time. Google invented something unique and innovative and they were rewarded tre…

Doesn't that just prove the point though?

In 1998 there were plenty of search engines and their use was distributed more evenly. The internet was still fairly new and most people weren't online yet. It certainly wasn't an integral part of most people's life. Google came along and improved on the existing search engines and in doing so wiped out a lot of that competition, becoming what they are today.

A new search engine now has to compete with global network effects, orders of magnitudes more data, Android, and a complex web of interconnected functionality.

Even only looking at the advantage that Google Maps brings to the table totally blows past any barriers present in 1998. Sure, you could build a much better search engine but who's going to use it when it can't give them directions?

Then consider that if you look like you'll end up making some headway, you're likely to just get bought and killed off/integrated.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#489

Post by rhtgrg »

softwaredoug wrote: post #486

There certainly is a product management lesson in here It’s not enough to launch a product, you need conviction, and skin in the game, that the product is a good idea. And when your bets don’t pay off, you need to pivot like your life depends on it. Google could never succeed with stadia (or other big bets) if there’s little downside risk for those involved to its failure. Instead of digging deep and getting creative…

> You can’t give people amazing comfort and stability then expect them to take outsized risks.

This statement doesn't make any sense to me. Who's going to try crazy new maneuvers on the trapeze, the person with the safety net or the one without?

Perhaps you meant to say that you can't expect people to iterate on their business model like their life depends on it...well, I'm sorry to inform you but that rarely happens even in the startup world. People routinely shrug and give up, some return money to investors, and everyone moves on.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#490

Post by sofixa »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #314
YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Were they even prepared to invest in the platform at all?

They probably spent millions on getting the whole Ubisoft and EA catalogues on Stadia. There was also Red Dead Redemption 2 quite early on, Football Manager 2020, Destiny 2, some Doom, Hitman, Cyberpunk. Not to mention hundreds of indie games. Saying Google didn't invest enough is showing lack of knowledge about the platform.

Thet didn't need an exclusive, that money would have been better spent on convincing more studios to port, marketing. And reassuring potential users with a promise for a refund.

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