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Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

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Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#251

Post by sorenjan »

jtchang wrote: post #31

This is a fantastic move by Google. The war for gaming as a service will be on the platform level and something that Google is well positioned to win in. Not saying that Steam, Nintendo, Nvidia won't be some serious contenders as well but the outlook for gamers is quite positive. I expect to see what the web went through in the early 90s as far as turmoil goes. Lots of platforms with all their quirks and developers g…

Cross platform is old school. You can send email between providers, call people on different phones, and access websites without knowing what kind of server they're on, but can you place a video call from Skype to Google Duo? Send messages from Slack to Discord? Tweet something using your Microsoft account? The open web is dead, it's all big companies' silos now.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#252

Post by bentcorner »

alach11 wrote: post #124
hn8788 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason this is a big deal is that one of the selling points of Stadia was that "cloud gaming" would enable things that consoles and PCs didn't, like huge persistent worlds with a ton a players in a single area. With no first party support, Stadia is just going to be a way to stream ports of games designed for consoles and PCs. Imagine if Valve released the Index, then announced that they aren't making VR…

To me this pivot makes a lot more sense. They’re sticking to their core competency. Gaming as a service, without a dedicated device or powerful machine, already has big appeal. If they nail that, they can always try some first party offerings to push the boundaries.

I don't know about that. Google has even less skin in the game now, with a game studio you could be convinced they were in it for the long haul, but now they can pull the plug almost effortlessly.

IMO the single business decision that doomed it from the start was the fact that you had to buy Stadia game to play on Stadia. Nothing from Steam/Epic/Ubisoft, and no cross-play.

I would not at all be surprised to hear within a year that they stop taking new subscribers, with a sunset a year after that.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#253

Post by asddubs »

_zamorano_ wrote: post #241
Clewza313 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Valve is not in the hardware business.

A successfull private company, with the best video game catalog, already king in PC gaming... I don't see much for them to gain and plenty to lose if they let google build a big customer base.

yeah, valve has its own ecosystem it wants to lock people into

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#254

Post by bastawhiz »

_zamorano_ wrote: post #241
Clewza313 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Valve is not in the hardware business.

A successfull private company, with the best video game catalog, already king in PC gaming... I don't see much for them to gain and plenty to lose if they let google build a big customer base.

Valve has the games and tried to build their own console and failed. Google has now effectively built their own console and doesn't have the games.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#255

Post by renewiltord »

guardiangod wrote: post #22

I know Google/Stadia recently partnered with LG to bundle the Stadia app with LG TVs, but I wonder why Google doesn't do this with every TV manufacturers (save Sony.) If I were Stadia's marketing chief, I'd 1. Bribe the TV manufacturers to include the Stadia app 2. Advertise that the TV includes _a game console_ during TV commercials. 3. Allow the TV users to pay a bit extra ($20?) to buy a basic game controller. 4.…

Google generally doesn't do BD that well. I think it's something to do with their start as a consumer-facing company. They prefer making a thing and then marketing it rather than using partnerships to get in.

The Android stuff seemed to suffer quite a bit from this early on, though they seem to have a handle on it now.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#256

Post by timwaagh »

Stadia is a good idea that did not reach its potential. But the same can be said about just about anything Google launches these days. I'm starting to get worried about waymo in particular. Perhaps it will not see any of the necessary investments either.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#257

Post by hobofan »

offtop5 wrote: post #235
hobofan wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with anything? TPP was a bog standard Twitch stream, with no ability for custom per-viewer spectator cameras.

I mean, I could probably figure out how to do that in Unity in about a week. You would basically just need to stream the cameras output texture to a web app, and then read inputs from from said web app. Regardless there's no reason to try and create a whole new engine for this, CryTek has always been known as one of the worst engines to work in, just because it's not supported very well.

Yes, that would be the low-tech way to achieve this, but if you want to scale that up to Twitch subscriber level of users, you would certainly want engine support for such a feature. That CryEngine was a bad choice is a valid point, though I guess there weren't that many public engines to choose from at the time that were that desperate for money.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#258

Post by bastawhiz »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #195
bastawhiz wrote: post #185

I'm dumbfounded at Google's lack of planning on this. I tried Stadia, and they had (have?) so few games that they seem to have neither search nor pagination on the list that you can play. None of the games are ones that I care about. It feels like they could have—at the cost of short-term profit and pride—partnered with Valve and shipped something mind-blowing. But instead we're left with a bunch of AAA games that fe…

Everyone knew this was a bad idea, and the truly curious thing is, how does anyone who greenlit this on any level still have a job? Stadia had a narrow set of interesting use cases around features deeply integrated with Google products: Zero of them were ready for launch, and I think all but one are still unavailable today. The value for gamers is debateable at best, but exclusive titles would be the only serious way…

It's only been a failure because of the lack of games. The tech (at least to me) feels fine. Which is honestly the worst part—it _could_ be a success but the business side is broken.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#259

Post by cryptoquick »

mindfreeze wrote: post #152

Recently I came across this https://shadow.tech/ They do something promising and better (?)

I also liked Shadow. I could play Windows games on Arch Linux without booting into Windows, their latency wasn't terrible, the wait wasn't too long (only about a month for me), it wasn't terribly expensive, and best of all, their business model actually required them to do their best to make the product a success. A novel concept to some large tech companies, it would seem.

Re: Google Stadia shuts down internal studios, changing business focus

#260

Post by lozaning »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #218
Jare wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when Microsoft/Epic approaches the studios for games on their platforms they front the entire development cost We once had a Microsoft rep come visit us to get us to publish our upcoming mobile games for Windows Mobile Tablet notreallysurewhatwasthatanymore. When we asked what kind of support they were ready to provide, they offered to lend us a device for a few weeks. Of course it's not representative of how thing…

As an independent person without a company, Microsoft gave me a free Windows Phone just for expressing interest in developing an app for it. These sorts of developer incentives kinda come and go, depending on the platform and how much they're investing in it.

When I was in college, you could show up to their 'Make an app day' and as long you successfully uploaded your own version of their slot machine app you'd be entered into a drawing for a bunch of really nice hardware. Microsoft was terrible at promoting these events, so everytime I went there where more prizes than people.
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