Google Stadia

Hello there…
@anon46267848, @Adubs, I am excited. See, I don’t hate everything. This is one thing I am actually looking forward to.
IF (and that’s a pretty big if) the experience is good and they keep the sub fee in the single digits this can become steam replacement.
If I can play whatever I want no matter my personal library of games or whatever I will be a happy man.

The only downside I see is completely hypothetical - the servers are gone - what’s happening with the games? I can’t play my favourite old games any ore ala Roller Coaster Tycoon or Caesar 3 or something. Good luck finding them anywhere since they were on Google servers and you don’t own a copy…

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Over on my clan’s forum, we have been discussing Stadia. Here is what I wrote on the subject.


I own physical media and much prefer it. I have a large collection of “digital” books and never read them but the physical books get read. I have DVDs and BlueRay disk of my favourites.

However, I still pay for a subscription service, more than one in fact. Amazon, Netflix and two wresting streaming services.

Netflix is for convenience. Imaging back when we would go to the video shop and rent a VHS tape. I look at Netflix like a small monthly payment and I can take out any number of rentals a week.

I would never “buy” a movie I did not get the disk. The same is true of Music, I own CDs but also pay Google for streaming, it’s for convenience.

Games are different, own most of my games in digital format. I can of course back them up but without Steam, they are all but gone. If Valve goes out of business and shuts up shop my games are gone. The same is true of Origin and Ubisoft.

As for the technical side of streaming games.

You click on a 4K video on YouTube it starts within a second. So Google can deliver the content. What you see on your screen is little different from a video on YouTube. The question is can they spin up a box running the game as quickly as they claim? They spoke in the keynote about starting a game within 4 seconds! To spin up an instance so quickly would be impressive.

If you are using the official Google controller, then it has no link to what is showing the video stream. It is connected over the internet independently. You are remoting into the server that is running the game with the controller and the video output of that machine is streamed to you just like YouTube. As they said in the keynote the screen can be almost anything that can show a YouTube video.

They must be very confident in their backend. The idea of coordinating a massively multiplayer game where every player is remoting into a games machine in their data centre. With the video and audio content is then streamed back to the players is mind-bending.

Many years running the world most used video content platform has given them the experience needed I guess on the streaming side. Running cloud servers where they can spin up new instances seamlessly to meet load requirements. The only thing they needed was the hardware to play the games. All of that and a whole heap of money.

The two things that will kill them or make them kings will be the games library and the business model. Subscription or do you have to buy the games. If it’s buying the games I’m not going to bother and I couldn’t recommend anyone getting involved.

If the game library is lacking then people won’t pay for a subscription and it’s game over.

So, if it’s a subscription service? And the games are good, the lag is acceptable, then why not it will be the Netflix of games.

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Well the thing is they are not gonna be just the netflix of gaming. Their platform seems to offer game creators new creative ways to make games which will make new games platform bound and in general it means if this becomes a thing, gaming PC’s and Consoles will become just another collectors item.

This is not a bad thing overall, as it will bring better gaming experience in countries with developing markets.

I am just thinking of all the data collection Google will do with this platform.

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It will be. There is no other way.
Steam have bijillion games. No way Google can snap their fingers and rerelease all those great old games from dead studios on their thing. GOG is another argument. Many of the games there aren’t even possible to release anymore.
There is no way Google’s game library will be anywhere near the smaller stores like GOG… Even Epic bulshit will have more games I guess…

Uhmm Google has the money to get all the studios and game devs they want.

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Yet they form their own studio…

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Ensuring that they have games that use the features the platform uses.

Just like how Epic studios made demos for the Unreal Engine.

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Epic games can suck a bucket of fucks… That’s all I have to say about them…

I’m curious how will this turn out.
Surely they can’t roll it out for free. But even a small sub fee will turn a lot of people off. So god only knows…
If they have tired subs with some limitations for the free tier, then I wouldn’t mind at all. But if they force payment with no free plan and what not - that may be the end of that…

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Damn I don’t know what did they do to you to deserve that but they are the main player out right now ( or should I say their owner is, which is Tencent ).

Anticonsumer anticompetitive bulshit.
They started well - we give more money to the developers.
Then they started “we are buying exclusivity to our games” bulshit… That pissed in my cornflakes… Cause it ain’t just steam they are battling. It’s all the rest as well… If you really love PC gaming you can’t just accept that shit. EA and buubisoft are allowed to do whatever they want with their games, and yet boobysoft still sells on Steam and wherever else. CD project can sell only on GOG but even they sell on steam. Epic exclusives aren’t epic games. It’s 3-th party games. This is not good. This is not good for anybody.
Will metro Exodus be on Google’s thing? Will Ashen? Most people forgot about Ashens existing. It’s Supergiant game. It’s Bastion and Transistor follow-up. It should be an event. It’s a fart in a church… Here it is… 2 minutes later - everyone forgot about it…

Anyways, if those Epic store exclusives are available on Google’s service what is the reason for the Epic store to exist? Steam and Google streaming cover all the basis.

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Hopefully.
I prefer Google to Valve.

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What ? I mean why ?

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Google makes useful services.
Valve just makes money doing nothing.

Let’s not get further into it here.

I’m hoping Stadia becomes the Netflix of games, and if it delivers my gaming computer is going to the museum.

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Netflix is not really a good comparison.
I don’t care about Netflix. Half the world don’t even know about Netflix. Netflix is America’s thing. I surely hope Stradia isn’t Netflix limited…

Ftfy.

The input lag is going to be annoying unless you’re really close to the server or have fiber.

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Most people are accustomed to a console on some random TV where the input lag is yuuuuge, I think it will be ok for normies.

Yeah but now double it or more. It’s going to be unplayable. I get 25ms to Chicago at best. Every major city is going to need a server to keep it reasonable.

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Let’s not sugarcoat this. You mean poor countries where people can’t afford high-end machines.

Anyway we will not be able to play offline. We won’t be able to mod the games or pirate them. They will be able to shove adverts into your gameplay. On top of that we will have pay subscription? Wow that’s some next level of bullshit. There is no reason for games to be SaaS other than make use of the ultimate DRM.

My gaming schedule is very sporadic. I am not going to pay for something I don’t use on regular basis.

If this takes over Steam, GOG, and general consoles I will give up on gaming completely.

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Yeah that’s true.

Well then maybe finally we will have some good open source games.

Yeah that’s one of the main drawbacks.

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