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Google is shutting down Stadia

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Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#851

Post by lupire »

crazygringo wrote: post #673
vyrotek wrote: post #43

Just a couple of months ago. "Stadia is not shutting down. Rest assured we're always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro." https://twitter.com/GoogleStadia/status/1552989433590214656

That tweet was surely from the Stadia team, and teams generally do not plan on shutting down. I think we can assume that was 100% honest at the time, and the team was doing everything it could to keep going. And that upper management (VP/director/etc.) probably finally made the decision to shut it down just a couple of weeks ago or even less. So while ironic... it's highly unlikely Google was lying, as multiple peopl…

Reckless disregard for truth is as bad as lying. Claiming to definitively know things you don't know, is lying.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#852

Post by aasasd »

When news of Stadia rolling out appeared on HN, I commented right away that it will be shut down before long, and was downvoted.

Of course, such predictions are just pure probability, by now.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#853

Post by ebzlo »

partiallypro wrote: post #753
ren_engineer wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google needs to restructure their incentives before it wrecks the company. I have no doubt whoever launched Stadia got promoted and then bounced to a different product and didn't care about whether Stadia was a success long term. Google's ad money printer masks the rot underneath, Google is literally a meme at this point for shutting down products. No serious business or developer is going to trust them. If governmen…

To be fair, Stadia was an astoundingly stupid idea for Google to get into, the fact that it was ever green lit is crazy to me. It fits nothing in their business model. At least the Google Pixel showcases Android and digs deep into their AI, etc. Stadia literally didn't do anything, but maybe use GCP in some way...but they didn't do it in the way Microsoft is, which is to lure gaming companies to use the cloud for the…

It seems to be strongly synergistic with a lot of their existing product offerings.

Getting the technology done even better means that Chromebooks and Androids (or even the browser) could be heavyweight gaming machines -- and thereby increasing those audiences.

As those audiences grow (and they're already big), having better hardware streamlined into Stadia means they immediately have insane distribution power. If you consider mobile gaming dominance in Asia, and the ability to release triple-A games immediately to a billion devices worldwide, that creates huge leverage over iOS.

Then as you said, GCP. I think someone with an idea and roadmap was there, but FAANG incentive programs don't reward people focused on the long game.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#854

Post by devwastaken »

enumjorge wrote: post #507
ren_engineer wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google needs to restructure their incentives before it wrecks the company. I have no doubt whoever launched Stadia got promoted and then bounced to a different product and didn't care about whether Stadia was a success long term. Google's ad money printer masks the rot underneath, Google is literally a meme at this point for shutting down products. No serious business or developer is going to trust them. If governmen…

The thing that baffles me is that this has been a known issue for a long time, and yet there doesn't seem to be any significant moves to improve this. Can someone please explain what Sundar Pichai's big goals as a CEO are? That's a genuine question. He doesn't seem to be solving existing issues related to culture and incentives. And the company hasn't landed any big wins recently. I mostly see increased monetization…

The majority of Google's income is still ads. Stadia and all others are pennies in comparison. These are little pet projects for insane millionaires, not products that solve real problems. That's what happens when you get too big, you lose focus of what's important.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#855

Post by p1necone »

A lot of people on this thread are hemming and hawing about latency, and how game streaming services are never going to work out and so on. But imo this is not really true.

60fps 1080p gaming with less than ~50ms latency from controller to screen is absolutely doable right now (for most locations in the USA, assuming decent internet access - so there needs to be clear communication of whether potential customers will have a good experience on their connection), and that's enough for enough people, even as a secondary device for "core" gamers.

This is a totally viable market waiting for someone to release a decent product. Stadia failed because it was garbage and Google didn't know how to manage it, not because game streaming is non-viable.

Stuff like GeForce now is great, but the fact that it's target users are already Steam etc customers means it's not going to pull in people that aren't already in the PC gaming ecosystem, and most people already in that market aren't going to switch from owning their own hardware to streaming. The value proposition sucks for people that don't care about owning their games and playing them natively on their own hardware as well as streaming.

Someone just needs to release a polished product, with a Netflix style pay as you go payment model instead of charging full price for games that customers don't actually own.

Get a decent library of games on there, add a few exclusive "killer apps" and market it well and you will kill.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#856

Post by aasasd »

autoexec wrote: post #693

Everybody is talking about how terrible Google and their culture is, so I'll just put it out there that this is great news for gamers. Cloud-based gaming services are a terrible deal for gamers. Gamers shouldn't cede so much control to some 3rd party who will be watching over their shoulder and collecting every scrap of data on them and their friends while they play. We don't need our performance in games being used…

Coincidentally, Russian users of Switch can currently experience this dilemma firsthand, as Nintendo forbid downloads from the shop even for already bought games. (Sony forbids purchases, but at least allows downloading games that are ‘owned’.)

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#857

Post by phao »

futureshock wrote: post #713
phao wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super sincere question. > Google's reputation for not supporting things long term I didn't know Google had such a reputation. I mostly use drive and gmail, so it was fine to me. Does google really have such a reputation? Any place I can read more on this?

Very sincerely, you must read just about zero tech news. Google has been infamous for this ever since they shut down Google Reader in 2013. For about the past 10 years they are a company adrift that can no longer launch new products without getting absolutely ridiculed. Everyday consumers have lost their faith in the company because they are so used to getting jerked around anything G. People I know wont touch a G ch…

> Very sincerely, you must read just about zero tech news.

Not 0, but really not much, that is true.

I remember the shutdown of google reader. I tried it once, but let go of it before it was shut down.

But I really didn't know google had this kind of reputation.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#858

Post by lupire »

rany_ wrote: post #178
yellow_lead wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that was a lie

I doubt the social media guy even knew. They were posting promotional tweets just 2 days ago. Source: https://twitter.com/GoogleStadia/status/1574790973443522566

It's an employee doing a job. The job was to lie to the public for short term gain. Don't have to blame the employee, do have to blame the management.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#859

Post by makeitdouble »

furyofantares wrote: post #633
vyrotek wrote: post #43

Just a couple of months ago. "Stadia is not shutting down. Rest assured we're always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro." https://twitter.com/GoogleStadia/status/1552989433590214656

What I think happens in situations like these (from experience) is that the team is trying as hard as they can to prevent shutting down. And they either believe they'll succeed, or believe they can't succeed without boosting the expectation that they'll succeed by explicitly claiming they aren't shutting down. If you say, both to the public and to the team, that you might shut down but you're not sure yet, that's as…

Yes. There's a Japanese podcast (rebuild.fm) where one of the recurring guest (Hak) is from a game dev background and was probably assigned to Stadia. He never said it explicitely but from the conversation you would guess.

One of their discussion was on how much commitment was crucial in the game dev world. Devs on all sides (platform, libraries, actual game) would put their skin in the game and gamble time and money but also personal energy to make something successful, and there was an expectation that all participant would stick together even as the future gets bleaker (what comes to my mind is Nintendo supporting and pushing the Wii U for a while, even as it was a clear failure, or Sony keeping the Vita alive as much as they could)

Your reputation as a platform maker gets a serious hit if you're ready to quit the minute your forecast gets dark, and game devs never really forget this kind of things, unlike other more opportunistic ecosystems.

I kinda hope the Stadia team could move on outside of Google to a more fitting company..

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#860

Post by yyyk »

I so knew it would happen. I explained why Stadia's business model made no sense two years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26073799

TL;DR: Stadia was technically geared for AAA games, but had a horrible value proposition for AAA studios/gamers. It could be good for casuals, but Google's ego did not allow it. With no remaining niche it had to shutdown.

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