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Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

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Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#571

Post by AtNightWeCode »

jibe wrote: post #555
AtNightWeCode wrote: post #549

This is what so depressing about the CS biz. Any senior developer can provide the data that firmly explains why a product like Stadia does not work. Still, some of these “beyond belief” garbage marketing people think that somehow, they are going to circumvent basic physics principles. Fire everybody involved.

They pay full price per game to stream is Stadia's problem, not physics. It technically works very well. They just never even came close to a compelling business model. I use the Xbox streaming all the time, it is works very well. What makes it work is it comes bundled with Game Pass - so you can download and game in the library, or stream most of them. Streaming is an amazing way to try games without committing to m…

Never heard of XBox streaming. The lag on Stadia was ominent from the get go and basic calculus tells why.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#572

Post by gambiting »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #368
gambiting wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying that if you're watching a blu ray rip of your own purchased disc, it isn't the same product you bought. Technically correct, but it's completely legal to rip your own discs(at least in the EU, can't comment on other countries).

I'm not even thinking about legality. My issue with "just download a crack" is that I have to spend time hunting down the crack, and I can't be sure the crack won't include malware, or won't introduce bugs which only appear later in the game. The last of these has happened to me on multiple occasions. A cracked game is no longer the product I bought. By contrast, when I buy a game on GOG, I get a product that is DRM…

You are correct of course. My point is that if Steam would disappear, a technological solution would appear to play your games. Just like even once every single PS1 on the planet turns into dust, we can still play PS1 games by other means. With stadia, this will never happen because you can't get a copy of a Stadia game I'm the first place.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#573

Post by mrguyorama »

upupandup wrote: post #447
wccrawford wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only need to pay for the games (at full price because there's never a sale!) and your internet connection. You can play at 1080p for free. You need to subscribe to Stadia for 4k and some free games. In the end, I agree with you, it's just not quite as bad as you painted it.

its a horrible proposition: pay to watch a video stream of a game you dont own that you can control with lag. why would I do that when I can buy a game on Steam or GOG or even outright pirate it, run it on my local machine, don't need to worry about internet upstream capacity, and I can take it anywhere? it never made any sense and will never make sense.

And if I still REALLY want those mpeg encoding artifacts and lag, I can still stream the game to another computer from my gaming computer using Steam, my AMD app, probably three other programs for games I already have installed etc.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#574

Post by vineyardmike »

jfim wrote: post #332
ctvo wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually, this strategy works for google. Google enters these markets and then kills it for any possible future competitors. In the short run, it's a loss, in the long run, you nullify new possible competitors. They're no longer in the market. Now others are also slow to enter the market, in this case video game streaming as a service, and it's good for Google? This new product market isn't a core competency for Go…

I'd phrase it differently. Google got lucky in the sense that they set out to build a search engine, someone said "hey why don't we do text ads," it made money, and they've been riding that ever since. They're the kind of company that drilled a few holes, found oil once, and is now drilling holes everywhere without understanding where oil comes from.

The other issue is that search makes A LOT of money. Even if they find oil, it’s such a small amount compared to search that it doesn’t seem to move the needle internally.

If you look at the opportunity cost of supporting a small side business va building a bigger business.. you drop the small thing. Google engineering is expensive and they have a somewhat polished brand that they don’t want to muddle with a bunch of “non winners”.

Amazon has the opposite problem. They build everything and have to find a way to scale their internal orgs to handle lots of tiny side revenue streams. I signed up for a magazine subscription through Amazon and they had a website redesign that accidentally (?) removed the management portal link for a few weeks. They do so much they can’t even stay internally consistent.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#575

Post by Karunamon »

macspoofing wrote: post #562
Karunamon wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't read the rest of the comment. I'm not talking about things like multiplayer games, I'm talking about things like being able to download the stuff you purchased (purchased, not "licensed") in perpetuity, or at least for a reasonably long period of time, rather than just when the company gets bored. That is not an unreasonable ask, especially considering the high degree of control society grants them over th…

>I'm not talking about things like multiplayer games What is and isn't a 'multiplayer game' isn't so clear cut. Neither is the reason why 'multiplayer games' should be exempt from this. But let's leave that aside, the problem is that there isn't a simple, clear-cut legislation to fix this. Instead you would need to create a big regulatory and enforcement framework, along with a technical framework defined and built b…

I believe the threat of legislation by itself may do the trick, without the need to actually get into the process. Do you remember how the ESRB was formed? There was a governmental push as a result of complaints about videogame content, with the government vowing to form a legislative solution unless the industry regulated itself.

As it turns out, they got together and came up with their own ratings system, and it was largely a success.

Again, my criteria for success is that digital content should not be arbitrarily removed from the purchaser. That's it. However we get there is an implementation detail. The hypothetical indie could shove the files on an S3 bucket and call it a day. The hypothetical multibillion-dollar mega corp could push an update to their console which redirects all download links to an absolutely basic file store of some kind that the console would work with.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#576

Post by gsich »

lelandfe wrote: post #298
thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #15

"there'd be no license transfer of any sort, which means that any purchases made on Stadia would effectively be nullified as the service closes down." It lasted less than three years and will leave players with nothing to show. This is what people were predicting when Stadia lauched and part of the reason why it had poor adoption.

> Q: If the Stadia service is discontinued, do we know what (if anything) will happen with game purchases? > Andrey Doronichev, then Stadia Director of Product: > We get this a lot. I hear you. Moving to the cloud is scary. I felt the same way when music was transitioning from files to streaming. I still have all my old CDs in the garage… although it's hard to find a CD player these days :) > The same happened to Mov…

>I hear you.

If you read this - run. Or ignore everything that comes after as it's filled with lies.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#577

Post by vineyardmike »

roody15 wrote: post #293
harha wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only plays out if you offer anything to customers once the competitors are gone. Also: there’s still PlayStation, Xbox and even Apple Arcade doing perfectly fine in this space

Is Apple Arcade doing fine? In my small world I don’t know a single person who uses it.

I have arcade through their Apple One subscription and uh I think sometimes my family tries to buy a game and it’s free so that’s nice?

But i don’t know anyone who intentionally uses it as a library. I assume that it’s just a nice way to redirect money to devs they like in a rare scheme to appease their game dev partners.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#578

Post by Karunamon »

jibe wrote: post #564
Karunamon wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't read the rest of the comment. I'm not talking about things like multiplayer games, I'm talking about things like being able to download the stuff you purchased (purchased, not "licensed") in perpetuity, or at least for a reasonably long period of time, rather than just when the company gets bored. That is not an unreasonable ask, especially considering the high degree of control society grants them over th…

I think you are missing the unintended consequences of mandating servers stay open if games are purchased. The way to avoid that permanent liability is to just get rid of purchases and force all games into a subscription.

The industry is moving in that direction anyways.

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#579

Post by mrguyorama »

technofiend wrote: post #362
bdefore wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an odd comparison. Unlike Stadia, if the Pixel phone division shuts down you still have a working phone. Forums will be forums and the trolls get the spotlight. Pixel phones, particularly the cheaper 'a' models, are very popular and good value. What significant things are much better on non-Google Android phones?

>... you still have a working phone You do, but if Google literally dropped support of their phones, you'd never get another security update, so it'd be in your best interest to move although not mandatory like if Stadia shut down. The comparison is about peoples' visceral reaction to Google products when they're disappointed, not specifically when the product is dropped. > What significant things are much better on…

I already don't get support from Google for my pixel 2 xl

Re: Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

#580

Post by ascagnel_ »

kmeisthax wrote: post #508
ascagnel_ wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the publishers looked at it like Nvidia had stolen their games to make their own bootleg streaming service. nVidia was preloading games onto their service without licenses, and so they needed publisher approvals to do this. There are other cloud services that offer a gaming-capable PC and block storage and don't run afoul of this, since you need to install the games yourself.

This seems like a distinction without a difference. Them preloading game files shouldn't matter, because the actual games still require a DRM license in order to work. It's broadly legal to run caching proxies, remote-hosted DVRs, and shared/deduplicated cloud storage. There's even specialized cache proxies for Steam. What would be the difference between what Nvidia did and, say, having a shared Steam cache server si…

> Them preloading game files shouldn't matter, because the actual games still require a DRM license in order to work.

> There's even specialized cache proxies for Steam. What would be the difference between what Nvidia did and, say, having a shared Steam cache server sitting between all of their streaming instances and Valve's servers?

The difference is that Valve, as part of their distribution agreement that publishers and developers sign to list on Steam, claims the right to host and distribute the files. Preloading the files is important, because it's a differentiation of the service -- you're not renting a PC in the cloud, you're signing on to a service where all your games are just sitting there, without your input, already patched and ready to go.

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