Google is shutting down Stadia • Hacker News Board

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#911

Post by regularjack » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:35 AM UTC

Stadia was dead in the water since day one, because you had to buy the games on stadia, even if you already had a copy in another platform.

Compare that to GeForce now, which can stream (some of) your existing library, and it's obvious Stadia had no chance.

You had to pay the monthly subscription, plus buy the games, and if you stop paying the subscription, you lose the games! That's a terrible deal and many in the gaming community predicted the demise of Stadia exactly because of this.

If nvidia can make it so GeForce Now can stream your existing library, surely Google could too? It's baffling that Stadia management didn't see this.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#912

Post by matheusmoreira » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:35 AM UTC

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

Welp. I don't even understand why anyone would ever trust Google at this point.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#913

Post by jaza » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:40 AM UTC

dqpb wrote: post #766

Google: "Would you like to waste the best years of your life?" Engineer: "No..." Google: "What if I pay you slightly above average and give you free food?" Engineer: "Deal!"

The engineers shouldn't feel that they've wasted years of their life, if they built quality tech. They should be proud of what they achieved. Not their fault that management was useless.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#914

Post by perryizgr8 » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:45 AM UTC

I honestly feel like Google is cursed after they burned so many people with Google reader. The collective bad will of those users is still haunting them, making them not being able to commit to anything long term.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#915

Post by danrl » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:05 AM UTC

Busy day.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#916

Post by xster » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:26 AM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #478

Rebelgecko wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, I bet if that Stadia would've done much better if it had launched with the promise of "if we do shut it down, we'll refund all your purchases"

Funny story. Two years ago they gave away "Stadia Premiere Edition" kits for free, which was a Chromecast Ultra and a Stadia controller which I believe retailed for USD 100. I wasn't particularly interested, but I figured it would be worth a try. But when I got the hardware I tried signing up and realized that apparently I had signed up for the Stadia free trial 6 months earlier. I vaguely remember trying for literal…

I also got a premier kit, got the nice hardware, then got an error saying the workspace I signed up for the promotional offer with is not eligible for using stadia.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#917

Post by closetnerd » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:38 AM UTC

algoatecorn wrote: post #764

closetnerd wrote: post #762

I've long thought big companies and individuals have WAY more money than they know how to effectively use. This is really hurting American innovation edge. If we could figure out a more effective way to get that money towards entrepreneurs / start ups - we'd be way better off.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/277501/venture-capital-a...

Effectively? Cause you can get it wrong and get a bunch of WeWorks...

To be fair - didn't really look into it past the graph, but my initial question would be how much that has to do with all the money that artificially got pumped into the economy last year.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#918

Post by 0xRusty » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:45 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #687

I'm honestly astonished at full refunds for everything purchased via Google -- not just software but hardware too. I know most of the comments here are focusing on "Google shuts down yet another thing as everybody expected" but this is really doing right by consumers. I think they deserve a lot of credit here. With so many (usually valid) warnings about how you don't really own digital content in the cloud or hardwar…

Probably tells you how little the services were used to be able to issue a refund like that. Finance wouldn't sign off a multi billion refund for sure. It's probably less than $100m, that they can also somehow write off too if the stadia legal entity was based in some tax haven.

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#919

Post by bogota » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:54 AM UTC

So shocked. I am just surprised it lasted this long

Re: Google is shutting down Stadia

#920

Post by cavisne » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:57 AM UTC

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…

His goal was to expand Google into china [1], then he folded on that due to employee pushback. Similarly with all the other mini dramas (working with the military, "AI principles").

He may not even be wrong, the biggest risk to google is some regulator getting unhappy so playing it safe makes sense.

[1]https://www.vox.com/2016/6/1/11830654/google-ceo-sundar-pich...