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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

#671

Post by arkitaip »

simonh wrote: post #667
toephu2 wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how does anyone who greenlit this on any level still have a job? Have you ever worked for a tech company? They don't just fire PMs/leads because their project failed. We are all human, we all make mistakes, in fact I bet 90% of the projects Google works on fail (public and private). It's the 10% that succeed that the company is going after (but you don't know that until after the fact of course). The PMs that drove…

The problem with that is that it creates a culture of complacency. If failure is acceptable and even expected to be the norm, then don't be surprised when lots of projects you thought would be sure-fire hits or are executed successfully by competitors end up failing.

So how do you prevent mediocricy because every employee is afraid of failing because of the draconian consequences?

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

#672

Post by Duralias »

ThatPlayer wrote: post #611
riversflow wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think Stadia is truly an MVP. It’s a Google MVP, it doesn’t have to be truly viable, only viable to google middle management looking for a promotion. That’s what people are lamenting, you can’t role out a competitive gaming platform with such a small catalog of titles. >I bought an Xbox to play Red Dead Redemption 2 . . . lots of people falling into the “who this is for” camp Those people appear to be “casual…

Stadia doesn't have a $10/mo cost or $75 upfront cost though. Stadia Pro is optional, and the client runs in Chrome on almost any device (not sure about iOS yet). I can go on the store and buy Cyberpunk 2077 and start playing on my phone if I wanted to.

If we want to compare Stadia to current generation consoles then I think we need to include the 10$/mo, 1080p on stadia looks terrible on any somewhat large screen, "4k" is much better.

And the 75$ upfront cost does exist, you need a controller. You could get a controller for cheaper, but it wouldn't be as easy to use or be usable with the chromecast ultra, which seems to be where the best experience is. Nonetheless you still need a controller and most people wouldn't settle for something that is terrible to use, so the cost is still a consideration.

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

#673

Post by enos_feedler »

dredds wrote: post #629
enos_feedler wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the planning was bad. This is about what you do when you’ve made bad plans. We’ve all made bad plans and we generally stick with them longer than we really should. I know I have.

The sunk cost fallacy only applies when it hurts.

I am not sure what you are implying?

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

#674

Post by xxs »

bashwizard wrote: post #665
cush wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried stadia? It's incredible 99.9% of the time. But that 0.1%... I thought I could put up with a few frame drops in Metro, but it just sucks you out of the game.

I tried Stadia this christmas and while I'm not surprised, I'm disappointed. Everyone says that it runs well, no input lag, great picture quality and so on. But that was a lie. While playing Destiny 2 and Hitman on a laptop running Ubuntu and over wifi with a controller, it felt ok-ish. Almost on par with playing on a Xbox Series X but not quite there. However, when I tried the same games on my gaming rig, on a 1 Gbi…

>Almost on par with playing on a Xbox Series X

That's pretty low bar to clear

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

#675

Post by simonh »

arkitaip wrote: post #671
simonh wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is that it creates a culture of complacency. If failure is acceptable and even expected to be the norm, then don't be surprised when lots of projects you thought would be sure-fire hits or are executed successfully by competitors end up failing.

So how do you prevent mediocricy because every employee is afraid of failing because of the draconian consequences?

Why are you assuming the consequences should be draconian?

There might not even need to be any consequences in any given case, but there should be an appropriate and fair approach to rewards and possible consequences.

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

#676

Post by enos_feedler »

p1necone wrote: post #518
enos_feedler wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, yes. I am a professional investor with a product-driven thesis. Sub-reddits are one of the most honest, representative samples for the quality and love for a product by the market. I bet millions on this.

I'd get some of your Stadia feedback from outside the Stadia subreddit specifically - it seems to either be filled with sycophants, or has a mod team that removes anything negative (or both). Sentiment elsewhere on reddit is completely different.

Do you have a recommendation?

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

#677

Post by sgift »

krick wrote: post #179
madrox wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been approached by Google for these kinds of projects, I 100% believe this. I was leading a team approached by them to do something similar for Google Glass. There was no real incentive there except the privilege of being an early glass partner. The entire process of working with them was a nightmare and we decided to bow out. I'm short on any attempt Google makes at being a media company.

I'm not sure if I'm surprised or not. On one hand, it kind of fits my mental image of Google perfectly, I don't know why. On the other: doesn't Google have a shitload of money and doesn't Google burn it so often by starting hundreds of projects it just kills after a couple of years of development?

The problem is not that Google couldn't pay them. The problem is that Google is arrogant as hell: Why should we pay you when we give you the privilege to be part of something we, the masters of the universe, introduce?

They fail to understand that from the outside people don't see things Google does as sure bets.

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

#678

Post by seanhunter »

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…

> 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?

Nothing succeeds like failure.. In my experience at multiple companies in tech and elsewhere, it is (sadly) frequently the case that the people responsible for the biggest failures are the ones who have the fastest career progression. It's a sort of reverse Stockholm syndrome where they are holding their bosses captive because as they fail the stakes for the management get higher and higher and so they get more and more bought in.

There's one person in particular that I remember from my time at Goldman. Lovely guy but every single thing he was involved in was an unmitigated disaster. Sure enough he failed his way to becoming an MD in record time.

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

#679

Post by vasachi »

smt88 wrote: post #656
Epskampie wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the problem for Stadia, it’s target audience is gamers who don’t have a lot of time to game. That is not a fruitful market.

> That is not a fruitful market. Source? I know a lot of people, some with children, who have enough income to drop $60 on a game every month without batting an eyelash. Busy people are often a great target market. These people are mostly Switch players, so Stadia is a perfect upgrade for them.

How is stadia an upgrade to Switch?

Stadia is an upgrade to nothing, as in having Stadia is better than having no way to play games. But an upgrade to a dedicated games console?

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

#680

Post by arkitaip »

simonh wrote: post #675
arkitaip wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do you prevent mediocricy because every employee is afraid of failing because of the draconian consequences?

Why are you assuming the consequences should be draconian? There might not even need to be any consequences in any given case, but there should be an appropriate and fair approach to rewards and possible consequences.

Because grand parents mentioned firing people...
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