Google's ambitious push into gaming is floundering(businessinsider.com)
businessinsider.com
Google's ambitious push into gaming is floundering
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-so-few-games-on-google-stadia-2020-2
478 comments
Google often seems to have the attitude "if we build it, they will come, and if they don't, the idea was never feasible in the first place".
I think Google has to some extent been crippled by their search success - they built something and everybody came and uses it with little or no promotion or support, and its fantastic profitability has colored their view of everything else they try - if it's not an immediate massive success (and at Google, something that makes a hundred million in profit every year is generally not even worth the trouble), they lose interest and the people internally working on it disperse to other projects with better prospects.
They have the best hammer in the world, and it's cost them the ability to see anything that's not a nail.
I think Google has to some extent been crippled by their search success - they built something and everybody came and uses it with little or no promotion or support, and its fantastic profitability has colored their view of everything else they try - if it's not an immediate massive success (and at Google, something that makes a hundred million in profit every year is generally not even worth the trouble), they lose interest and the people internally working on it disperse to other projects with better prospects.
They have the best hammer in the world, and it's cost them the ability to see anything that's not a nail.
> Google often seems to have the attitude "if we build it, they will come, and if they don't, the idea was never feasible in the first place".
This comment echoes Paul Graham's observation about the wrong attitude founders often have about initial growth [1]: "A lot of would-be founders believe that startups either take off or don't. You build something, make it available, and if you've made a better mousetrap, people beat a path to your door as promised. Or they don't, in which case the market must not exist."
[1] http://paulgraham.com/ds.html
This comment echoes Paul Graham's observation about the wrong attitude founders often have about initial growth [1]: "A lot of would-be founders believe that startups either take off or don't. You build something, make it available, and if you've made a better mousetrap, people beat a path to your door as promised. Or they don't, in which case the market must not exist."
[1] http://paulgraham.com/ds.html
It's funny though, I remember the old days before Google and they built something that was demonstrably superior for their users than what was out there at the time. They did win with a superior product.
Stadia feels like something that got designed by asking "how can we make something that's worse for our users than the other alternatives that are out there now?" and then going and building that.
Now had they come out with virtual machines better than what anyone could get at home, maybe?
Don't get me wrong though; I'm sure a lot of this is death by a thousand compromises.
As a side note: I was watching the Product Keynote from Flutter Interact '19 and when the person from the Stadia team was speaking about their app, it reminded me that despite all the negativity Stadia is getting, we should remember that there are real people building it that are enthusiastic about what they're doing and trying to make something good.
Stadia feels like something that got designed by asking "how can we make something that's worse for our users than the other alternatives that are out there now?" and then going and building that.
Now had they come out with virtual machines better than what anyone could get at home, maybe?
Don't get me wrong though; I'm sure a lot of this is death by a thousand compromises.
As a side note: I was watching the Product Keynote from Flutter Interact '19 and when the person from the Stadia team was speaking about their app, it reminded me that despite all the negativity Stadia is getting, we should remember that there are real people building it that are enthusiastic about what they're doing and trying to make something good.
It was actually the same with Gmail as it was with Search.
Gmail was just a much better service than Hotmail or Yahoo! mail, arguably their biggest competitors at the time. They also offered a ridiculous amount more space.
I think those two successes alone led a lot of us into a place of just using Google products by default for a while.
It’s an utter shame what’s happened with the company, especially with its privacy issues.
Gmail was just a much better service than Hotmail or Yahoo! mail, arguably their biggest competitors at the time. They also offered a ridiculous amount more space.
I think those two successes alone led a lot of us into a place of just using Google products by default for a while.
It’s an utter shame what’s happened with the company, especially with its privacy issues.
> Stadia feels like something that got designed by asking "how can we make something that's worse for our users than the other alternatives that are out there now?" and then going and building that.
My friend has Stadia and it's actually a great product. The latency is negligible. I would be the exact target audience. I usually play 8-10 games a year. I don't really want to invest in a console or gaming PC just for that. The ~100 upfront cost is great. But Google's reputation kills it. I won't pay full price for AA titles when it can be taken away in any minutes. Till that fixed, I just stick with buying ~5 years old games from Steam that runs on my MacBook
My friend has Stadia and it's actually a great product. The latency is negligible. I would be the exact target audience. I usually play 8-10 games a year. I don't really want to invest in a console or gaming PC just for that. The ~100 upfront cost is great. But Google's reputation kills it. I won't pay full price for AA titles when it can be taken away in any minutes. Till that fixed, I just stick with buying ~5 years old games from Steam that runs on my MacBook
I wouldn't say that directly applies to what Google is trying to do.
I think what Google is doing is just re-investing back into x amount of companies/ideas where even if 1-2 of those companies bounces back and becomes profitable they make up their investments + they make profit.
I think they do realise how much money there is to be made in the gaming world and such. Its just time and money against profit for them.
Throw eggs in the wall and see what sticks or not.
Personally I don't like that model and thats why I use google services less and less. Even gmail is a huge no-go for me due to their nonexistent support.
I think what Google is doing is just re-investing back into x amount of companies/ideas where even if 1-2 of those companies bounces back and becomes profitable they make up their investments + they make profit.
I think they do realise how much money there is to be made in the gaming world and such. Its just time and money against profit for them.
Throw eggs in the wall and see what sticks or not.
Personally I don't like that model and thats why I use google services less and less. Even gmail is a huge no-go for me due to their nonexistent support.
Forgot about http://paulgraham.com/ds.html. Great post and relevant as ever today.
I think/suspect/speculate that since Google has search/ads billions raining from the sky, nothing else it does really matters to them.
So all side projects are done kinda like a hobby.
So all side projects are done kinda like a hobby.
Makes sense to me. And I think another factor is that with ads, users are the product, not the customer.
If customer service is the foundation of a business, it drives a certain attention on the individual experience of every user, and there's a real incentive to be a customer's #1 choice by the customer's own criteria.
But Google's relationship with the userbase is statistical, not individual. As along as enough people look at their ads, that's good enough. They were never intending to please everybody, and so don't really have to pay attention to the details.
So it's entirely unsurprising to me that they're failing at gaming, which is very much about delivering amazing individual experiences to one's chosen niche. Ditto their failure in social networking. In both cases they built something that sounded good on paper and could be adequate for some people, but never succeeded in being truly great for enough people to capture an audience.
If customer service is the foundation of a business, it drives a certain attention on the individual experience of every user, and there's a real incentive to be a customer's #1 choice by the customer's own criteria.
But Google's relationship with the userbase is statistical, not individual. As along as enough people look at their ads, that's good enough. They were never intending to please everybody, and so don't really have to pay attention to the details.
So it's entirely unsurprising to me that they're failing at gaming, which is very much about delivering amazing individual experiences to one's chosen niche. Ditto their failure in social networking. In both cases they built something that sounded good on paper and could be adequate for some people, but never succeeded in being truly great for enough people to capture an audience.
Google built a pretty successful social network, which even grew faster than Facebook for the first half decade. And like with their messaging services, they then decided it was better to just create a new one from scratch rather than trying to work with what already successful.
Orkut? I'm not sure we can really count that as something Google created. As I recall, it was a single engineer's side project based on work he did previous to Google.
Sure, Google did sort of adopt it. But as you say, it got pushed aside.
Sure, Google did sort of adopt it. But as you say, it got pushed aside.
Reader was kind of a social network too, and would have equally been a great foundation to build on instead of shutting it down for google+
It's weird though, because GSuite -- esp google docs, google sheets, and google calendar -- are really good and pretty well supported. So they _can_ do it. Now to be fair, we're rapidly approaching $15k/year in spend with them.
I'm desperately wishing google would build a company-aimed wiki because confluence is atrocious.
And if anyone is going to deliver cloud gaming, my bet is it's google. It plays to their strengths: their ability to orchestrate and deliver scaled computing at the highest possible speeds. Further, it addresses one of the few markets at a large enough scale to make an impact on their revenues.
I'm desperately wishing google would build a company-aimed wiki because confluence is atrocious.
And if anyone is going to deliver cloud gaming, my bet is it's google. It plays to their strengths: their ability to orchestrate and deliver scaled computing at the highest possible speeds. Further, it addresses one of the few markets at a large enough scale to make an impact on their revenues.
I'm guessing you're getting down-voted for that last bit.
For one, it's missing the point about what everyone said is important about gaming, and hits the point that everyone said google doesn't understand about customers. why do you think 'deliver scaled computing at the highest possible speeds' = good at gaming? its kind of typical google, 'we offered the best X statistic, therefore they must like it.'
for "if anyone is going to deliver cloud gaming, my bet is it's google.", No. If I were to bet money, I would say it would be someone who is good at cloud, or good at gaming. Google is good at neither.
For one, it's missing the point about what everyone said is important about gaming, and hits the point that everyone said google doesn't understand about customers. why do you think 'deliver scaled computing at the highest possible speeds' = good at gaming? its kind of typical google, 'we offered the best X statistic, therefore they must like it.'
for "if anyone is going to deliver cloud gaming, my bet is it's google.", No. If I were to bet money, I would say it would be someone who is good at cloud, or good at gaming. Google is good at neither.
I don't think it's sufficient, but it is necessary. I'm not sure who else has an edge network that can deliver comparable compute and comparable latency? A very short list, if anyone.
And Google isn't good at cloud? Maybe not gcp, but their internal application delivery capability is second to none.
And Google isn't good at cloud? Maybe not gcp, but their internal application delivery capability is second to none.
What's so bad about GCP/Firebase?
It’s not the technology, Google is horrible at Enterprise sales and support. Firebase also isn’t going to win them large enterprises.
+1. They're an ad company and ultimately they feel clunky and condescending to deal with in a consumer context.
Azure Solutions Architects: You want to move your SQL Server 2003 database running on Windows 2000 on Azure? Ok we can do that and come up with a project plan to modernize your stack and extend your support.
GCP SA: We are “smart people” (tm) you should move your entire workload to $cool_technology before we migrate and do things the modern way.
GCP SA: We are “smart people” (tm) you should move your entire workload to $cool_technology before we migrate and do things the modern way.
We are not game developers, our opinion doesn't count.
edit: I just remembered: I've actually begged people not to make projects dependent on knol or wave. Its unsurprising how those projects ended after they ignored me. What did surprise me were the people who identified the use of those platforms as a failure in judgement and left immediately.
edit: I just remembered: I've actually begged people not to make projects dependent on knol or wave. Its unsurprising how those projects ended after they ignored me. What did surprise me were the people who identified the use of those platforms as a failure in judgement and left immediately.
For cloud gaming, the hard and highly relevant infrastructure work is about how many edge locations you have.
On that metric, Google is far ahead of everybody else in that particular field.
Now if Cloudflare or Akamai were to enter the cloud gaming business...
On that metric, Google is far ahead of everybody else in that particular field.
Now if Cloudflare or Akamai were to enter the cloud gaming business...
There is a lot of competition in the cloud gaming space, and there is a low technical barrier to entry, especially since the streaming server + client are likely to commoditize (they’re all based on similar codecs, and require hardware acceleration that’s provided by the GPU).
The number of edge locations you have doesn’t matter; latency does. It looks like startups in this space can achieve “good enough” latency with a small number of edge locations.
For instance, Shadow covers the vast majority of the US population with four data centers (they have six, total, but two are in Europe):
https://status.shadow.tech/
Coverage map:
https://shadow.tech/usen
The number of edge locations you have doesn’t matter; latency does. It looks like startups in this space can achieve “good enough” latency with a small number of edge locations.
For instance, Shadow covers the vast majority of the US population with four data centers (they have six, total, but two are in Europe):
https://status.shadow.tech/
Coverage map:
https://shadow.tech/usen
> their ability to orchestrate and deliver scaled computing at the highest possible speeds.
The gaming industry is already good at that. Like, really really good. Do you think companies that operate world-spanning low-latency gaming experiences are going to be quaking in their boots because Google?
What Google is really, really bad at is humans. And the gaming industry is all about understanding that there are a raft of interests ranging from casual to shooter to arty to... whatever. There's still a lot of room for taste-driven sleeper hits (think Untitled Goose Game) as well as research & marketing driven extravaganzas like GTA Online or FIFA whatever-the-year-is. And wrangling social media, forums, engaging with fan wikis and chat and stuff, which is part of the fabric of gaming, is the sort of thing Google are absolute shit at. Gaming chat is famously terrible, but even gamers look down their nose at YouTube comments.
The gaming industry is already good at that. Like, really really good. Do you think companies that operate world-spanning low-latency gaming experiences are going to be quaking in their boots because Google?
What Google is really, really bad at is humans. And the gaming industry is all about understanding that there are a raft of interests ranging from casual to shooter to arty to... whatever. There's still a lot of room for taste-driven sleeper hits (think Untitled Goose Game) as well as research & marketing driven extravaganzas like GTA Online or FIFA whatever-the-year-is. And wrangling social media, forums, engaging with fan wikis and chat and stuff, which is part of the fabric of gaming, is the sort of thing Google are absolute shit at. Gaming chat is famously terrible, but even gamers look down their nose at YouTube comments.
I believe docs and sheets were from their acquisition of Writely in the mid 2000s, not something that's homegrown.
I wouldn't call docs and sheets good by any means; they're passable at most, with tons of missing features.
I wouldn't call docs and sheets good by any means; they're passable at most, with tons of missing features.
> I wouldn't call docs and sheets good by any means; they're passable at most, with tons of missing features.
And yet they entirely replace Microsoft Office for millions of people.
And yet they entirely replace Microsoft Office for millions of people.
No doubt they're an ok word processor and a mediocre spreadsheet.
That's not what they are though. They're really good group collaboration on docs, particularly content, and collaborative lists with owner assignment. We do a huge amount of editing / signoff / planning / workbacks / etc in them.
That's not what they are though. They're really good group collaboration on docs, particularly content, and collaborative lists with owner assignment. We do a huge amount of editing / signoff / planning / workbacks / etc in them.
Docs and Sheets were entirely rewritten in house many years after the acquisition. They don't work at all like the original products.
I'm not sure I can call that a real exception. Calendar is something they needed themselves, and also use as a "soak up everybody's data to make things more sticky" tool. It's good for what it is, but if it were a serious product offering, I'd expect it to be more flexible, more feature-rich.
Docs and Sheets strike me as probably in the same bucket. They're perfectly cromulent, but there's nothing amazing about them. They were acquisitions, not an in-house creation. All they really do is take the basic features of any number of competitor products going back 20 years and put them on the web. If you like what they deliver, great. But if not, I wouldn't wait around for Google to add features aimed at specialists. It seems more like a basic utility than a consumer product.
Docs and Sheets strike me as probably in the same bucket. They're perfectly cromulent, but there's nothing amazing about them. They were acquisitions, not an in-house creation. All they really do is take the basic features of any number of competitor products going back 20 years and put them on the web. If you like what they deliver, great. But if not, I wouldn't wait around for Google to add features aimed at specialists. It seems more like a basic utility than a consumer product.
Have you worked collaboratively with Google Docs?
Sure. That's what I mean by "on the web". They have decent basic real-time collaboration features. Otherwise, they're basically the same as Word and Excel were 25 years ago.
But even for collaboration I think there's a long way to go. It's not like they significantly rethought the product in terms of true collaboration at a global scale. As far as I've noticed they've added non-conflicting, real-time edits and showing cursor location to the previous Word/Excel collaboration features like comments and proposed changes.
But even for collaboration I think there's a long way to go. It's not like they significantly rethought the product in terms of true collaboration at a global scale. As far as I've noticed they've added non-conflicting, real-time edits and showing cursor location to the previous Word/Excel collaboration features like comments and proposed changes.
Google is the world's most expensive post-college hiring and training program, subsidized by the core search/ads cash cow.
But it's a really bad one. They killed Reader because it would let them abandon some legacy infrastructure. All other businesses don't have that luxury. They deal with annoying challenges head on. Google's unlimited money basically lets them abandon products when maintaining them stops being fun, or when extra work is required to power through the last 10% and make that product viable for take-off.
But it's a really bad one. They killed Reader because it would let them abandon some legacy infrastructure. All other businesses don't have that luxury. They deal with annoying challenges head on. Google's unlimited money basically lets them abandon products when maintaining them stops being fun, or when extra work is required to power through the last 10% and make that product viable for take-off.
I think it's more that Google's management/culture currently doesn't work.
Everyone I've ever met there subscribes to the ideology you can soft launch things and build over time. "It worked for Gmail" they say. But ultimately Gmail didn't ask people to shell out real money. And it was a long time ago. Consumer culture has changed, and a launching half finished messy products with no real support or direction really alienates people now.
That approach also only really applies if you can give a product away for nothing for a long time to build a userbase. Ruth Porat simply isn't going to let that happen, because Google's new fiscal discipline means she kills products if they don't have a clear path to profitability after three years.
And that's the real contradiction. There's nothing wrong with Porat's approach, but Google structurally is not set up to deliver products like that at all. And Google's culture did used to be successful, but can't work with what the Stock Market has made it very clear that Porat is to do (it's extremely clear stockholders like the three year requirement).
Ultimately you've got to look at the top of the company for the rot, because senior leadership do not seem to be pulling in the same direction, and as a result you end up with now... when was the last time Google launched a successful consumer product? The Nest Home Mini is probably the closest one, and I suspect that still hasn't made any actual profit with how many they give away.
Everyone I've ever met there subscribes to the ideology you can soft launch things and build over time. "It worked for Gmail" they say. But ultimately Gmail didn't ask people to shell out real money. And it was a long time ago. Consumer culture has changed, and a launching half finished messy products with no real support or direction really alienates people now.
That approach also only really applies if you can give a product away for nothing for a long time to build a userbase. Ruth Porat simply isn't going to let that happen, because Google's new fiscal discipline means she kills products if they don't have a clear path to profitability after three years.
And that's the real contradiction. There's nothing wrong with Porat's approach, but Google structurally is not set up to deliver products like that at all. And Google's culture did used to be successful, but can't work with what the Stock Market has made it very clear that Porat is to do (it's extremely clear stockholders like the three year requirement).
Ultimately you've got to look at the top of the company for the rot, because senior leadership do not seem to be pulling in the same direction, and as a result you end up with now... when was the last time Google launched a successful consumer product? The Nest Home Mini is probably the closest one, and I suspect that still hasn't made any actual profit with how many they give away.
Actually most of the Google projects exist to defend Ads/Search combo and to napalm potential threats.
My thoughts are my own but I think Google is very serious about diversifying their sources revenue away from mostly advertising.
Sure, but it's a "nice to have" serious.
Not the "life or death" serious companies are for their main business.
Not the "life or death" serious companies are for their main business.
I don’t doubt they are trying, they just haven’t shown they know how to compared to other large tech companies.
Just what you want from your service provider.
Google's easy to sunset policy makes them an easy target in any industry that isn't ripe for change or that provide any setbacks. If the going gets tough Google exits.
Google's size gives them a big advantage that they never figure out how to use it.
Google's size gives them a big advantage that they never figure out how to use it.
> Google's size gives them a big advantage that they never figure out how to use it.
Good for us consumers, isn't it?
Good for us consumers, isn't it?
Like any tool it depends on how they use it. Leaving the abusive fiefdoms of others in place doesn't help consumers.
It is a matter of nuance essentially. Google and all competitors may do things good, bad, or both for consumers and their size doesn't have much to do with it.
iirc Google Maps was initially not a success. MapQuest had a majority market share of online maps up until the release of the iPhone. So they floundered for about a year or two.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mapquest-a-symbol-of-everyth...
https://www.businessinsider.com/mapquest-a-symbol-of-everyth...
You couldn't actually just use Gmail when it launched. You needed to get an invite for a fairly long time, which made it a little bit of status symbol. Google have tried repeating the same play a bunch of times since then, and it has always failed. For a while I did wonder whether they were trying it also with Stadia.
The free "no subscription needed, just buy the game" tier of Stadia is the thing that should in principle be distinguishing them from the competition, and is actually kind of compelling from a consumer perspective. While the Stadia Pro just makes no sense as a product; it's targeting the people who least want this service and who are the most likely to already have huge game libraries on other platforms. How can it be that four months after launch, the tier that people might actuall want is still nowhere to be seen?
The free "no subscription needed, just buy the game" tier of Stadia is the thing that should in principle be distinguishing them from the competition, and is actually kind of compelling from a consumer perspective. While the Stadia Pro just makes no sense as a product; it's targeting the people who least want this service and who are the most likely to already have huge game libraries on other platforms. How can it be that four months after launch, the tier that people might actuall want is still nowhere to be seen?
> The free "no subscription needed, just buy the game" tier of Stadia is the thing that should in principle be distinguishing them from the competition, and is actually kind of compelling from a consumer perspective
Isn't that how every other game store works as well? Unreal's, Steam, Microsofts and others all work with that same idea. They also have additional subscription services, but by default it's just "no subscription needed, just buy the game"
Isn't that how every other game store works as well? Unreal's, Steam, Microsofts and others all work with that same idea. They also have additional subscription services, but by default it's just "no subscription needed, just buy the game"
Yes. But for all of those you need to buy hardware that can actually play the games. (A few hundred for a console, a thousand for a PC). The promise of game streaming is that you can play AAA games on the low-powered laptop or phone that you already have.
There's a few possible business models for streaming. E.g. with PS Now you have to pay a subscription, you get access to a games library, and can only play the games that are part of the library. (Not other PS4 games that you own). Or GeForce Now which in practice requires a subscription (the free tier is only 1 hour at a time) and allows you to play a limited set of games as long as you own them on the right platform (e.g. Steam). Xcloud seems quite likely to just be sold bundled together as part of another subscription.
So the free tier of Stadia should have been interesting due to not requiring a large up-front investment, and not requiring an ongoing subscription. Which at least at this moment is unique. Or rather, would be unique, because 9 months after the announcement it still has not launched.
There's a few possible business models for streaming. E.g. with PS Now you have to pay a subscription, you get access to a games library, and can only play the games that are part of the library. (Not other PS4 games that you own). Or GeForce Now which in practice requires a subscription (the free tier is only 1 hour at a time) and allows you to play a limited set of games as long as you own them on the right platform (e.g. Steam). Xcloud seems quite likely to just be sold bundled together as part of another subscription.
So the free tier of Stadia should have been interesting due to not requiring a large up-front investment, and not requiring an ongoing subscription. Which at least at this moment is unique. Or rather, would be unique, because 9 months after the announcement it still has not launched.
Except that you can’t actually use stadia to play on the low end equipment you already have.
It only works on a select few high end phones, it only works on the most expensive chrome cast, and it requires a high end internet connection. The people who have the money for that stuff is likely to easily afford a Nintendo Switch which can actually be used for gaming everywhere without needing an internet connection.
>Except that you can’t actually use stadia to play on the low end equipment you already have.
Er, Stadia works just fine on a chromebook with a 10 Mbit/s internet connection? That's about as low end as it gets for both measures. Does it require a high end phone to play on a phone? Yup. Does it require a Chromecast Ultra for higher resolutions and a higher speed internet connection (35 Mbit/s) to play on a TV? Definitely. But you can play on Stadia for less than a Nintendo Switch even if you add together the cost of a chromebook and an xbox game controller. Which is what I use on my laptop to play Stadia games.
Er, Stadia works just fine on a chromebook with a 10 Mbit/s internet connection? That's about as low end as it gets for both measures. Does it require a high end phone to play on a phone? Yup. Does it require a Chromecast Ultra for higher resolutions and a higher speed internet connection (35 Mbit/s) to play on a TV? Definitely. But you can play on Stadia for less than a Nintendo Switch even if you add together the cost of a chromebook and an xbox game controller. Which is what I use on my laptop to play Stadia games.
Okay, so you have a choice between a cheap Chromebook or an Xbox One at literally identical price points. Except the Xbox one actually comes with the xbox controller with games custom built to use the xbox controller.
And when you buy the games, you get to keep them! No risk of your xbox disappearing overnight after you go to bed, unlike cloud offerings.
Well 10mbit is nice, until someone in the house starts streaming a video as well.
Yes, I believe that's the point the poster is trying to make. The restrictions google is putting on the service currently aren't necessary, and are hurting the product.
If Google is going to succeed it is going to do so by bringing tons of new people into video gaming who didn't have experience with the native hardware.
With its added latency, vendor lock-in and Google-related privacy pitfalls, Stadia wasn't attractive enough for existing PC and Console gamers to switch in mass.
With its added latency, vendor lock-in and Google-related privacy pitfalls, Stadia wasn't attractive enough for existing PC and Console gamers to switch in mass.
I mean, yeah, it would certainly be unique. But would it ever be sustainable? It basically requires them to pay for the ongoing costs of hardware+bandwidth for rendering and streaming, all for the store fee they get at the time of purchase (about $20 on a regular AAA game?).
Isn't there a conflict of interest? They want you to buy as many games as possible but play them as little as possible. This will mean that they will primarily allow short games on the platform. Something like Skyrim or Rimworld could be a guaranteed loss.
The difference is that Gmail was way better than its competitors at the time. The spam filter alone was a huge sell.
edit: the 1GB mailbox !
edit: the 1GB mailbox !
Yeah, back then Hotmail gave you something like 10MB and everyone literally thought 1GB was an April Fools' Day hoax. If Stadia was literally 100x better than the nearest competition while still having a far superior user experience then they wouldn't be having any trouble.
Plus, they were not yet notorious for killing services after a few years. It's becoming a self-fulfilled prophecy with newer Google products that need a critical mass to take off.
blame the new era of fiscal discipline at google.
products have to make an appreciable difference in the bottom line
products have to make an appreciable difference in the bottom line
the fact that it didnt catch on then says it was not better than its competitors.
hotmail had that nice tie in with messenger, which was a huge plus
other emails had the ability to delete email
google tried to use email for ads which users found creepy
google had an invite system that made signing up difficult
etc etc
hotmail had that nice tie in with messenger, which was a huge plus
other emails had the ability to delete email
google tried to use email for ads which users found creepy
google had an invite system that made signing up difficult
etc etc
Are you saying Gmail didn't catch on? That's like saying nobody buys an Android phone. Gmail is the #1 email provider in the world and Android is the #1 mobile OS in the world.
Yeah but it isn’t very profitable in the grand scheme of things. It came out in the Oracle trial that Google had only made around $23 billion in profit from Android from inception until around 2016.
They pay Apple around $8 billion a year to be the default search. Apple has made more from Google in mobile than Google has made from Android.
They pay Apple around $8 billion a year to be the default search. Apple has made more from Google in mobile than Google has made from Android.
It didnt catch on till 2012. It was also gmail that caused a change in public perception of google
Meanwhile, Nvidia GeForce Now is rounding up users with the tried and true freemium strategy with a 100% free tier to remove psychological barriers to sign up.
There's only one reason to not do that: if your platform can't actually handle having users.
There's only one reason to not do that: if your platform can't actually handle having users.
I haven't tried GeForce Now (but I have played ~300 hours so far on Stadia), but from what I've seen on Twitter they have some kind of waitlist for servers before free users are allowed to start playing a game (and paying users just jump to the front of that line), and then they can only play for one hour at a time (6 hours for paying users). That makes me think they might not have as many servers as they'd like people to think from such a freemium strategy at first glance.
GFN isn’t selling games, so they need to be more willing to degrade the free tier.
Stadia is selling games, so the service should do its best to get out of its users way as much as possible.
Stadia is selling games, so the service should do its best to get out of its users way as much as possible.
I tired GeForce Now for about 30 minutes and found the latency to be unbearable. On a more than gigabit fibre connection right next to their data center.
I barely find Steam link playable on my home wired network.
Same experience here, do not enjoy fast paced games over streaming, and can't imagine what is would be over the internet... Image quality also take a hit obviously, video compression isn't magic.
Agreed.
Though it works perfectly for party games where even a second or two latency is tolerated, like the Jackbox party games.
Though it works perfectly for party games where even a second or two latency is tolerated, like the Jackbox party games.
does anyone remember when gmail first launched it didnt have a delete email option because they wanted to 'teach users to value data like google values data'?
It mostly worked on me if that was the goal. Except now my storage is at over 93% and I'm trying to figure out if I can just download my mbox file and delete all the emails for the next decade...
Google allows you to download your emails. I don't know what format it is in though. (https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en). If it is not mbox format I am sure there is a converter if you need it.
I'm exactly on 93% too, I'm am going to clean out my Google drive which is full of stuff I could put elsewhere and will give me another few years. It's about time they increased their limit from 15GB though!
It's unlikely they will, there's an upgrade path called Google One that gets you 100GB storage for about $20 a year, across all their products, and shareable by family members. It also comes with human tech support.
>Compare it to the Gmail or Chrome
Chrome was built out of the frustration of Firefox didn't get any faster. And at the time they have a real need to compete with IE which was holding back the web, their search engine, and hence their ad money.
Gmail was built by an employee as their 20% project, got traction within the company, improved the Spam filter for their own use before it was open to public ( or invite ).
Both of them were born from product mentality, where they see a problem, have real frustration and have vision of where it should be.
It was quite clear Stadia was born out of a business revenue idea rather than real needs. ( That goes the same with Apple Arcade, although one can argue it was designed for kids ) And whether there is a market for it remains to be seen.
Despite all the criticism Apple gets, and all the flaws it has lately, they are still very much a product mentality company, and possibly the only one out of the big corps. Google on the other hand, is more like a one off success. I cant even remember a Google product on top of my head that are not from acquisition or 20% project and was born out of a product mentality.
Edit: Ok there is one, Google Map.
Chrome was built out of the frustration of Firefox didn't get any faster. And at the time they have a real need to compete with IE which was holding back the web, their search engine, and hence their ad money.
Gmail was built by an employee as their 20% project, got traction within the company, improved the Spam filter for their own use before it was open to public ( or invite ).
Both of them were born from product mentality, where they see a problem, have real frustration and have vision of where it should be.
It was quite clear Stadia was born out of a business revenue idea rather than real needs. ( That goes the same with Apple Arcade, although one can argue it was designed for kids ) And whether there is a market for it remains to be seen.
Despite all the criticism Apple gets, and all the flaws it has lately, they are still very much a product mentality company, and possibly the only one out of the big corps. Google on the other hand, is more like a one off success. I cant even remember a Google product on top of my head that are not from acquisition or 20% project and was born out of a product mentality.
Edit: Ok there is one, Google Map.
I thought chrome and Gmail (and android and maps) were built specifically to gather user data. That's why they launched Gmail for free literally months after Hotmail (outlook) started moving towards a charging model. The big plan for Google has been user data since at least 2000. They realised that's what would make them "more than a search engine". And they were right, and ahead of the curb by at least a decade.
Im not sure how or whether other services Stadia fit in to that. Maybe the fact they don't is why they get cancelled so easily? But I don't think it's accurate to say Chrome and Gmail were just standalone projects solving single issues, they were part of a wider strategy that has paid off.
Im not sure how or whether other services Stadia fit in to that. Maybe the fact they don't is why they get cancelled so easily? But I don't think it's accurate to say Chrome and Gmail were just standalone projects solving single issues, they were part of a wider strategy that has paid off.
Google Maps was also an acquisition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Acquisitions
> It was quite clear Stadia was born out of a business revenue idea
I'm guessing the cloud gaming stuff is planned as a way to generate revenue with spare GPU capacity in their server farms. They're already spending a ton on GPUs and network bandwidth, so why not sprinkle some kubernetes on top and run games on it when it's not running training datasets?
I'm guessing the cloud gaming stuff is planned as a way to generate revenue with spare GPU capacity in their server farms. They're already spending a ton on GPUs and network bandwidth, so why not sprinkle some kubernetes on top and run games on it when it's not running training datasets?
Except that from some gaming blogs, podcasts, the dev experience is quite bad, worse than using pre-release console devkits.
http://thedebuglog.com/2019/11/06/episode-102-developing-gam...
http://thedebuglog.com/2019/11/06/episode-102-developing-gam...
Agreed, 100%.
In retrospect, the Epic approach is obviously the right way to do it. It was pretty obvious before too, but I think most people would have discounted the "build a platform by throwing an enormous pile of money at it" approach as being impractical (if for no other reason than most people who want to build gaming platforms don't have enormous piles of money lying around). Epic showed that, no, actually, you can just go ahead and do the obvious thing. :)
And I find it odd because first, Epic did all this before Stadia's dissapointing launch, so it's not like Google execs can claim they just literally had no idea you could build a gaming platform this way, and second, because (like Epic) Google can clearly afford it.
It almost feels like Google doesn't want Stadia to succeed...? Or is this just a culture clash from Google's experience with ads, search, video, and webmail, where success seemingly just fell into their lap, and they're struggling to imagine needing to market a service? (I find the latter suggestion implausible since, actually, quite a lot of marketing went into making those a success, but man, I don't have a lot of other ideas.)
In retrospect, the Epic approach is obviously the right way to do it. It was pretty obvious before too, but I think most people would have discounted the "build a platform by throwing an enormous pile of money at it" approach as being impractical (if for no other reason than most people who want to build gaming platforms don't have enormous piles of money lying around). Epic showed that, no, actually, you can just go ahead and do the obvious thing. :)
And I find it odd because first, Epic did all this before Stadia's dissapointing launch, so it's not like Google execs can claim they just literally had no idea you could build a gaming platform this way, and second, because (like Epic) Google can clearly afford it.
It almost feels like Google doesn't want Stadia to succeed...? Or is this just a culture clash from Google's experience with ads, search, video, and webmail, where success seemingly just fell into their lap, and they're struggling to imagine needing to market a service? (I find the latter suggestion implausible since, actually, quite a lot of marketing went into making those a success, but man, I don't have a lot of other ideas.)
To be fair, Epic's approach doesn't require many resources other than just money. Hell, for the longest time their store literally did not have even a "search" function, and I'm pretty sure it still doesn't even have a shopping cart. Software development takes time, but they mostly bypassed that and went straight into giving out free games. The games themselves already exist for PC, Epic didn't need to do much there.
The case of Stadia is wildly different, because it requires a lot more engineering, both from Google and the developers. They also need a lot more resources per user, as each active user basically has their own dedicated cloud instance running the game. Scaling that up and giving that out for free isn't as trivial, even if money wasn't an issue.
So I don't think it's an apples to apples comparison here. We'll see what the demo looks like once Stadia actually releases it, what we have so far is really more of an early access to test out the infrastructure.
The case of Stadia is wildly different, because it requires a lot more engineering, both from Google and the developers. They also need a lot more resources per user, as each active user basically has their own dedicated cloud instance running the game. Scaling that up and giving that out for free isn't as trivial, even if money wasn't an issue.
So I don't think it's an apples to apples comparison here. We'll see what the demo looks like once Stadia actually releases it, what we have so far is really more of an early access to test out the infrastructure.
> To be fair, Epic's approach doesn't require many resources other than just money.
People massively underestimate the business affairs aspect of getting people to come onto your platform. It requires really good people, and a lot of them.
Google seem to have made the same mistake.
People massively underestimate the business affairs aspect of getting people to come onto your platform. It requires really good people, and a lot of them.
Google seem to have made the same mistake.
No wonder they’re having a hard time finding games then! A lower margin platform, with less customers and that requires significant engineering work is not at all attractive. It also shows a lack of understanding about the games industry.
Doesn't "enter a market by throwing enormous piles of cash at it" violate various anti trust laws, unless you're really careful?
That is only necessary because of the steam monopoly
> Epic gets everyone who would buy that game on their platform (minus the people who are outraged by the exclusivity deal)
IMO, it's more about a game store's expected longevity.
At this point I will probably never spend money on a game that's not on Steam (unless they go out of business) simply because:
1. I've gotten burned too many times by non-Steam stores that have later gone out of business.
2. Steam works really well.
I suppose a few people might be outraged by exclusives. I think most people just want an experience at least as good as games-on-dvd.
IMO, it's more about a game store's expected longevity.
At this point I will probably never spend money on a game that's not on Steam (unless they go out of business) simply because:
1. I've gotten burned too many times by non-Steam stores that have later gone out of business.
2. Steam works really well.
I suppose a few people might be outraged by exclusives. I think most people just want an experience at least as good as games-on-dvd.
Also important point 3:
They've promised they'll let you download DRM free if they ever shut down steam. Yea yeah, promise from a corporation, but still.
They've promised they'll let you download DRM free if they ever shut down steam. Yea yeah, promise from a corporation, but still.
They can't keep that promise because publishers are free to implement third party DRM. You can't blame Valve for the shutdown but you can blame them for lying.
I wonder if someone could create an Apache style foundation where companies can donate their game stores and game servers to it. It would also act as an archive for free games.
That sounds like a job for archive.org.
Epic and Google are vastly different systems. Epic can get away with paying much less because the effort required by game developers is minimal.
But for a game to be featured on Google, the game developers have to port it to Vulkan and Linux. This only makes sense for game developers if the cost of development/porting is going to be less than the money that they would make from the google stadia store. And given the less number of people who are using Stadia, game developers are shying away. And users are shying away because of lack of games. It's a classic chicken and egg problem which is unique to Google stadia. Geforce Now supports Windows games and xCloud uses microsoft's xbox library.
But for a game to be featured on Google, the game developers have to port it to Vulkan and Linux. This only makes sense for game developers if the cost of development/porting is going to be less than the money that they would make from the google stadia store. And given the less number of people who are using Stadia, game developers are shying away. And users are shying away because of lack of games. It's a classic chicken and egg problem which is unique to Google stadia. Geforce Now supports Windows games and xCloud uses microsoft's xbox library.
Not only that, it appears to be bare bones Linux development experience without some nice games related SDK.
http://thedebuglog.com/2019/11/06/episode-102-developing-gam...
http://thedebuglog.com/2019/11/06/episode-102-developing-gam...
To be honest, that actually makes me want to use Stadia more, not less.
Just like Android and ChromeOS games, that doesn't mean GNU/Linux will get any of it.
Agreed. Having more games built on linux and vulkan seems lik ea nice benefit.
This is the same company that released an amazing/life-changing email client called Google Wave and did not automatically make gmail content accessible in it. I got an “invite”, I invite my colleague who sits 10 ft from me, we logged in with the ability to connect only to each other. We looked at each other for a minute (irl) and closed the window.
You couldn't actually read mail in Wave though, and it didn't use an email protocol.
[deleted]
> 2. Appeal to the customers by giving away free games every week
This is actually bigger than just appeal. I now have almost as many games on Epic as on Steam. This means that I start the Epic Games Launcher almost every day to see if there's something I want to play. In fact I now run the Epic Games Launcher more frequently than Steam. This exposes me to their store and I have started buying games from them. Before Epic started their free give away, the launcher was in the same category as the other non-Steam launchers I have, like Uplay or Origin. Something I virtually never start except when to play a game that requires them (and even then I'm reluctant). This means I'm never exposed to their stores and never entertain the idea of buying a game from them through those stores - out of sight, out of mind.
This is actually bigger than just appeal. I now have almost as many games on Epic as on Steam. This means that I start the Epic Games Launcher almost every day to see if there's something I want to play. In fact I now run the Epic Games Launcher more frequently than Steam. This exposes me to their store and I have started buying games from them. Before Epic started their free give away, the launcher was in the same category as the other non-Steam launchers I have, like Uplay or Origin. Something I virtually never start except when to play a game that requires them (and even then I'm reluctant). This means I'm never exposed to their stores and never entertain the idea of buying a game from them through those stores - out of sight, out of mind.
Yeah, the reluctance to open a client you don't use very often cannot be overstated. If you haven't played anything on a client for a year, then just opening it is likely to set off updates to the client, possibly updates to the game library, just a whole flurry of potential activity you might have to sit through.If you aren't fully committed to playing whatever is in there, it's very easy to just decide on something else.
I wouldn't call EPICs store a success story. Many enthusiast gamers were repelled by exclusivity of titles that aren't from the developer/publisher itself. A good reason in my opinion, because this is pretty consumer hostile, you just get baited with some free stuff to sign up. They had the capital and wanted to buy market share.
Sad to see really, since EPIC certainly has one of the best game engines to develop against. But in my circle, nobody jumped on that train. They will have a certain demographic though.
Overall I still doubt they could have solved the problem with money.
Sad to see really, since EPIC certainly has one of the best game engines to develop against. But in my circle, nobody jumped on that train. They will have a certain demographic though.
Overall I still doubt they could have solved the problem with money.
Is it really baffling that Google’s product marketing/business people have yet another failing initiative? Have they ever shone any ability to profitably diversify outside of advertising?
YouTube and GSuite (Docs, Sheets) etc are probably the only other business lines that would work well as big standalone tech companies. Google Play is probably making a decent chunk by running ads, skimming 30% of purchases and new subscriptions + 15% of subscription renewals.
That said, there have been other successful products and acquisitions which improved their ad busines. GMail, Maps, Android, Chrome all products with giant user numbers, but whose main contribution is probably to improve ads.
Still, a system like Stadia relies on convincing developers that it has a viable future, and it's difficult to build momentum when developers feel burned by the shutdown of other platforms, e.g. Google Plus or Chrome Web Store, where they've sold developers on a bright future, mostly abandoned the platform within a year of launch, and eventually shut it down.
That said, there have been other successful products and acquisitions which improved their ad busines. GMail, Maps, Android, Chrome all products with giant user numbers, but whose main contribution is probably to improve ads.
Still, a system like Stadia relies on convincing developers that it has a viable future, and it's difficult to build momentum when developers feel burned by the shutdown of other platforms, e.g. Google Plus or Chrome Web Store, where they've sold developers on a bright future, mostly abandoned the platform within a year of launch, and eventually shut it down.
It’s estimated that Youtube is barely break even between what they pay creators and bandwidth and storage costs.
You could argue that Youtube breaks even.
But they pay peanuts to creators, $1k - $3k/million views per monetized video. And they own their own CDN, so bandwidth is a cost they can control or share with other properties.
And not operating Youtube would mean another advertising company would have a foothold to compete against them.
But they pay peanuts to creators, $1k - $3k/million views per monetized video. And they own their own CDN, so bandwidth is a cost they can control or share with other properties.
And not operating Youtube would mean another advertising company would have a foothold to compete against them.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21121370/youtube-advertisi...
Except, it’s not actually $15 billion. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat told investors during an earnings call on Monday afternoon that YouTube pays out a majority of that advertising revenue to its creators. Although Porat wouldn’t say how much of the $15 billion goes to its content makers, she did specify those payouts belong to YouTube’s “content acquisition” costs, which run around $8.5 billion.
Except, it’s not actually $15 billion. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat told investors during an earnings call on Monday afternoon that YouTube pays out a majority of that advertising revenue to its creators. Although Porat wouldn’t say how much of the $15 billion goes to its content makers, she did specify those payouts belong to YouTube’s “content acquisition” costs, which run around $8.5 billion.
every analysis ive ever seen about YouTube bandwidth costing google vast sums of money completely ignores that they are directly peered with almost every ISP on earth and pay absolutely nothing per byte or per mb/s and just assume they pay level 3 or similar tier 1 provider publicly stated rates.
Thats the real moat Google has, to replicate it would likely cost hundreds of millions a month in bandwidth, especially from places where they charge insane amounts (like GCP)
Thats the real moat Google has, to replicate it would likely cost hundreds of millions a month in bandwidth, especially from places where they charge insane amounts (like GCP)
This one not at all, as proven by their track record on Android, they just don't know how to talk to game developers.
Or the enterprise. Between the three cloud providers, GCP is by far the worse when it comes to enterprise engagements or support.
No matter what happens with Stadia and its market, Google simply cannot afford to kill the projects in the next few years. It would be a huge blow to their already tarnished reputation wrt keeping services alive. They need to prove to the world that they can long-term commit to major challenges even if they are suffering in the short-term.
Judging by Alphabet's stock price and their years of shuttering services at the cost of their reputation, it seems shareholders disagree with you.
They're not mutually exclusive. Google's search and advertising cash cow is so profitable, the company grows despite its boneheaded mistakes in so many other areas. If you read the article, every single developer mentioned they have no trust in Google not canning the service, and who can blame them? At this point, it's becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
> every single developer mentioned they have no trust in Google not canning the service
I never said developers have faith in Google. I said shareholders do. My point is Google doesn't really care what developers think.
I never said developers have faith in Google. I said shareholders do. My point is Google doesn't really care what developers think.
But that's kinda the problem. If Google doesn't care what developers think, they are very unlikely to succeed with Stadia.
I agree. I actually think Alphabet's long-term (10+ years) future is pretty grim.
It doesn't untill it does.
Their business depends on developers just like Lehman brother's depended on the mortgage market. Pride before fall, etc.
You ignore facts on the ground at your peril.
Their business depends on developers just like Lehman brother's depended on the mortgage market. Pride before fall, etc.
You ignore facts on the ground at your peril.
So what happens when more people start using ad blockers and advertisers move more toward FB where ads are harder to block and better targeted?
Out of the major tech companies - Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google.
Google is one of the least diversified and has been the least able to pivot over the past decade.
Out of the major tech companies - Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google.
Google is one of the least diversified and has been the least able to pivot over the past decade.
That's why Chrome market share is so important for Google, and why they will stop other advertiser to use it, and adblockers too. Chrome is the advertising channel for Google... and the entry point for Google Ads
And when ad blockers get so much better on other browsers people can switch. Especially now that IE is Chromium based.
Also in the US and to a lesser extent other developed countries, the wealthier more lucrative users are using iOS. Google knows this. That’s why they pay Apple a reported 8-12 billion a year to be the default search engine for iOS.
Also in the US and to a lesser extent other developed countries, the wealthier more lucrative users are using iOS. Google knows this. That’s why they pay Apple a reported 8-12 billion a year to be the default search engine for iOS.
Improving their stock price is exactly what they've been spending their reputation on by doing this - if the stock price had also tanked then this strategy would have been an absolute failure on every axis. It's undeniably bought them better numbers in the short term; the argument is that they are killing their long term potential.
there's an interesting thought exercise i read where someone suggests Google stock would go through the roof if they fired their entire workforce and cut all R&D and just coasted on the ad business
For all of the lack of success they’ve had with everything else, if they just focused on
Ads, GSuite, Youtube, Android, Chrome, and GCP, how much would it affect their profit?
Ads, GSuite, Youtube, Android, Chrome, and GCP, how much would it affect their profit?
> They need to prove to the world that they can long-term commit to major challenges even if they are suffering in the short-term.
Isn't that Waymo?
Disclsure: Work at Google, but opinions are my own.
Isn't that Waymo?
Disclsure: Work at Google, but opinions are my own.
Waymo hasn't launched, so it can't flounder and flop.
If that's the case, they should consider some kind of official statement that they'll provide support until at least X date.
Then they have to actually provide support until at least X date. Which, if it’s not successful, they don’t want to do.
> minus the people who are outraged by the exclusivity deal
I wouldn't be outraged by a "we'll help fund development in exchange for exclusivity" deal, but I am outraged (equally at Epic and the developer of the game) for making exclusivity deals after the game has been made, and seemingly in a lot of cases making it specifically a "you can release anywhere but steam" deal rather than an actual exclusivity deal.
I also wouldn't be outraged if it was just devs choosing not to release on steam because they get a better cut from actual game sales than they do on steam. I'm just outraged by Epic throwing fistfuls of money around to convince devs that have already finished their game not to release on Steam specifically.
I wouldn't be outraged by a "we'll help fund development in exchange for exclusivity" deal, but I am outraged (equally at Epic and the developer of the game) for making exclusivity deals after the game has been made, and seemingly in a lot of cases making it specifically a "you can release anywhere but steam" deal rather than an actual exclusivity deal.
I also wouldn't be outraged if it was just devs choosing not to release on steam because they get a better cut from actual game sales than they do on steam. I'm just outraged by Epic throwing fistfuls of money around to convince devs that have already finished their game not to release on Steam specifically.
> It's absolutely baffling to me Google didn't do anything like this, they have literally more money then they could spend, yet they didn't do anything to get people to actually use their service. Compare it to the Gmail or Chrome launch suddenly there was this 'free' product you could jump onto, it was technologically superior and exciting and it came out of nowhere. Imagine if they did that with Stadia, just suddenly release it without fanfare, all your favorite games are on there and you can play X hours a week for free or something like that.
The whole thing felt like a rushed impulse idea out of Hooli (HBO's Silicon Valley) that didnt get researched further before jumping in. They could of made a decent Steam competitor. In fact they would of known that Nvidia has dwelled into this space and could of hired them for consulting on the matter.
It had ideas that sounded next gen and worthwhile such as playing from where a YouTube video leaves off at.
The whole thing felt like a rushed impulse idea out of Hooli (HBO's Silicon Valley) that didnt get researched further before jumping in. They could of made a decent Steam competitor. In fact they would of known that Nvidia has dwelled into this space and could of hired them for consulting on the matter.
It had ideas that sounded next gen and worthwhile such as playing from where a YouTube video leaves off at.
Epic brute forced their way into this space and still have an inferior product. Your comment might be one of the few times I’ve ever seen someone speak halfway positively about them.
Well I get the outrage and all that, but that's mainly hard-core enthusiasts who pay attention to the industry. I also was kinda pissed when Control and Outer Worlds went exclusive, but in the end my love for those developers won out against epic's business practices. I just think it's very impressive how they leveraged their sudden hoard of cash from Fortnite and their developer contacts via the unreal engine into a seemingly(?) successful steam competitor. I'm not really a business-oriented-guy but it seems to me like it is an amazingly clever and well executed move.
I remember that when the orange box launched a lot of people (at least on the messageboards) where opposed to steam because it sucked and was basically DRM disguised as a store it's only because of the passing of time that it's now considered good. The orange box was in hindsight also a masterful move. I guess the lesson is, if you have content people REALLY want, you can get them onto your platform despite the outrage.
I remember that when the orange box launched a lot of people (at least on the messageboards) where opposed to steam because it sucked and was basically DRM disguised as a store it's only because of the passing of time that it's now considered good. The orange box was in hindsight also a masterful move. I guess the lesson is, if you have content people REALLY want, you can get them onto your platform despite the outrage.
Epic's entry into the game storefront business has been a drama filled shit-show. It has not been well received by very vocal swaths of the gaming community. In fact, their strategy of buying out developers for exclusivity rights is one of the reasons they've drawn so much ire.
See the controversy where Borderlands games were getting review bombed on Steam, because Epic secured exclusivity rights for Borderlands 3.
https://kotaku.com/borderlands-is-getting-review-bombed-on-s...
In the gaming world, you're basically damned if you do, damned if you don't. If Google had aggressively gone for exclusives, they'd be getting the same backlash that Epic has gotten/is getting. But since they didn't they might be getting an equal but opposite sort of backlash now.
See the controversy where Borderlands games were getting review bombed on Steam, because Epic secured exclusivity rights for Borderlands 3.
https://kotaku.com/borderlands-is-getting-review-bombed-on-s...
In the gaming world, you're basically damned if you do, damned if you don't. If Google had aggressively gone for exclusives, they'd be getting the same backlash that Epic has gotten/is getting. But since they didn't they might be getting an equal but opposite sort of backlash now.
I remain unconvinced any of that matters in the slightest. A small slice of overly-online people will whine about anything.
Epic isn't in this to garner compliments on Twitter, they're in this for money, and while they've got a long way to go to beat Steam, they're seemingly on the right track. (See, eg, https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21064951/epic-game-store-...)
Epic isn't in this to garner compliments on Twitter, they're in this for money, and while they've got a long way to go to beat Steam, they're seemingly on the right track. (See, eg, https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21064951/epic-game-store-...)
I'm not convinced either... but I'm also not convinced that things are so dire for Stadia either. Vocal minorities, etc.
> very vocal swaths of the gaming community
just worth reiterating that /r/gaming or whoevers favourite gaming YouTuber is not "the gaming community" or people that play video games.
just worth reiterating that /r/gaming or whoevers favourite gaming YouTuber is not "the gaming community" or people that play video games.
It’s a very vocal minority, but definitely a minority. And they’ve essentially rebranded terms like exclusivity agreements, an industry standard, into ‘extortion’ in their parlance.
Basically there’s a subreddit of Steam fans making an outsized amount of noise that if you look into, doesn’t make a lot of sense but has kinda turned into its own thing.
Basically there’s a subreddit of Steam fans making an outsized amount of noise that if you look into, doesn’t make a lot of sense but has kinda turned into its own thing.
The epic approach gets a lot of hate from a vocal minority. Everyone else has had multiple storefronts for a while, and having -one- more is borderline meaningless. As long as they don’t jack up the price, how many people give a shit which executable they have to click on to launch a game?
It's a pain to not have all the games in a single library. I put off buying Overwatch for a year or so because it was in a different launcher, and did the same for Forza Horizon 4; I'd be eagerly awaiting a sequel to Child of Light if it hadn't had some awkward double-launcher thing where playing it meant waiting 10 minutes for uplay to update every time. So I do think this ultimately affects customers enough to vote with their wallets, and that means it will affect developers where it matters. (Of course, if Epic is paying enough for its exclusives then developers will correctly decide that the tradeoff is worthwhile).
The Epic Store isn't supported on Linux. When they turn existing games on Steam into Epic store exclusives I can't play the games I have purchased.
> vocal minority
> Linux gamer
I fail to see the contradiction. Per Steam’s October 2019 user survey, all Linux distros together total 0.43% of their users. I am using the notably pro-Linux Steam as a benchmark for how many gamers are affected by this.
> Linux gamer
I fail to see the contradiction. Per Steam’s October 2019 user survey, all Linux distros together total 0.43% of their users. I am using the notably pro-Linux Steam as a benchmark for how many gamers are affected by this.
[deleted]
What game was released on Steam, then became an Epic store exclusive and stopped being playable on Steam?
Rocket League. The developer was acquired by Epic, and a few months later they announced that they were dropping support for Linux and OSX. Epic has previously stated that their platform will never be available on Linux.
Epic was not a shit show. The needless histrionics of the community response were a shit show. Not only unnecessary, but downright illogical for the community to throw a fit that amounted to begging for there to be no competition. Players got pissed off for having to sign up for a different free store and click a different button to launch their games.
The tragedy is that a whole generation doesn't realize you used to be able to buy and play games anonymously, offline, without going through a middleman. It would be better if you weren't forced through any launcher, but if there has to be one, more options are better.
The tragedy is that a whole generation doesn't realize you used to be able to buy and play games anonymously, offline, without going through a middleman. It would be better if you weren't forced through any launcher, but if there has to be one, more options are better.
Interestingly Metro Exodus was an Epic exclusive for a whole year before becoming available on Steam recently. It still sold 200,000 copies in a few days on Steam.
So it appears either some people are fine with waiting, unaware of the Epic store, or just needed new headlines to remind them.
https://www.techspot.com/news/84095-metro-exodus-has-sold-ov...
So it appears either some people are fine with waiting, unaware of the Epic store, or just needed new headlines to remind them.
https://www.techspot.com/news/84095-metro-exodus-has-sold-ov...
I feel like Google is not really competing to make killer products anymore. Its more like managers in Google are competing to move up in the organization, and whether or not products and services actually succeed is fairly incidental.
The only interaction I have with the Epic Store is hoarding free games "just in case". I see no reason to buy a game there unless it's cheaper than the other stores.
If Google did that, it might raise some anti-trust questions. Using money from the search business to buy them a market share in another area might be seen as anti competitive move.
Simply throwing money around to enter a new market is not anti-competitive. Throwing money at something unprofitable with the goal that growing user-share will drive future profits is a generally accepted business practice. Unless they come up with some truly outrageous predatory pricing scheme, or try and bundle it to some other Google product to push it, I don't think they'd run into any problems.
Yes, completely unlike Chrome browser, or Android OS, or gmail, or YouTube, or any other Google service.
Android and Chrome are a bit different as they were started years ago and Google has been somewhat careful in not pushing then too hard (for example only allowing Chrome on YouTube). With Android and Google services they have already attracted some attention.
Providing services like chat or webmail for free likely does not trigger any concerns. It has become accepted that this kind stuff does not cost anything to consumers so giving them free is not considered dumping.
YouTube could be definitely a concern, but Google seems to be careful with it. For example their spending on YouTube exclusives feels quite modest.
Providing services like chat or webmail for free likely does not trigger any concerns. It has become accepted that this kind stuff does not cost anything to consumers so giving them free is not considered dumping.
YouTube could be definitely a concern, but Google seems to be careful with it. For example their spending on YouTube exclusives feels quite modest.
It's not just Epic. (1) was part of MSFT's playbook with the original XBOX.
I just remembered that steam made a similar move with the orange box (half-life 2, HL2:episode 1, HL2:episode 2, portal & Team Fortress 2 for 60 bucks, but you have to install steam to play) also amazingly clever. Still the best gaming deal I've ever made if you look at price v quality of games.
They pay for original YouTube content and they paid for some exclusive VR games. Not sure why they're not doing that for Stadia but it has to be intentional. Maybe they don't think its really ready yet?
AFAIK, acquiring Typhoon Studios in December was their first public announcement of a first-party game studio. The exec in charge of Stadia said in an interview that she was planning on building out more [1]: "We have a plan that includes building out a few different first-party studios, and also building up the publishing org to ship exclusive content created by indie devs and other external partners."
[1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-10-24-google-is-...
[1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-10-24-google-is-...
The exec in charge of Stadia wouldn't be the one who makes the decision to drop it though. Her job is literally to keep the thing going until it's dropped.
Sounds like the Uber model with an actual ability to scale.
Google did give a bag of money to some developers at least.
For example to Robot Entertainment (devs of Orcs Must Die).
For example to Robot Entertainment (devs of Orcs Must Die).
The annoying thing is that google dabbles in things.
I suspect (but don't know) this might be related to the 20% time thing where employees can spend time on any project they want.
But the thing is, google projects too far removed from the core advertising business don't seem to survive.
Sometimes they develop an open source technology or pave the way for something, but other times they suck the air out of nascent niches.
I suspect (but don't know) this might be related to the 20% time thing where employees can spend time on any project they want.
But the thing is, google projects too far removed from the core advertising business don't seem to survive.
Sometimes they develop an open source technology or pave the way for something, but other times they suck the air out of nascent niches.
Was it a different team within Google doing high-level strategy, maybe?
"This concern — that Google might just give up on Stadia at some point and kill the service, as it has done with so many other services over the years — was repeatedly brought up, unprompted, by every person we spoke with for this piece."
That's a terrible reputation for any company to have.
In addition to Stadia, it seems to be killing off Improbable's Spatial OS, which is a back-end system for very large world MMOs. Originally, that had to run on Google Cloud. Three of the first games shut down, partly because the costs for that service are high. Nobody big is using it.
That's a terrible reputation for any company to have.
In addition to Stadia, it seems to be killing off Improbable's Spatial OS, which is a back-end system for very large world MMOs. Originally, that had to run on Google Cloud. Three of the first games shut down, partly because the costs for that service are high. Nobody big is using it.
When Microsoft launched Xbox they suffered pretty terrible losses for a number of years but they always knew that was going to happen[1], and they were willing to accept it because they were playing the long game.
This worked out not only because Microsoft had the money but, critically, because they had the will to make Xbox a success. They resolved to slog through the years of losses, failures (anyone remember the Japan launch?), and missteps in order to build a successful business.
Whilst Google have the money, more than enough money, to do the same, I don't think they have the will.
From my own perspective, as a gaming enthusiast, Stadia simply isn't solving any problem that I have, and I don't believe it's going to be around long enough that I want to invest in it.
[1] I'm sure they would have preferred if it wasn't.
This worked out not only because Microsoft had the money but, critically, because they had the will to make Xbox a success. They resolved to slog through the years of losses, failures (anyone remember the Japan launch?), and missteps in order to build a successful business.
Whilst Google have the money, more than enough money, to do the same, I don't think they have the will.
From my own perspective, as a gaming enthusiast, Stadia simply isn't solving any problem that I have, and I don't believe it's going to be around long enough that I want to invest in it.
[1] I'm sure they would have preferred if it wasn't.
I have an incredibly good internet connection since I'm working from home, but because I only play like 2-4 hours a week I can't really justify investing in a very expensive gaming computer. I need a laptop for work, and investing in an extra platform just for those 4 hours? Stadia might be a very good compromise for me, and I think there are quite a few others like me out there, especially in the youngest generation who mostly use mobile in the first place.
"A very expensive gaming computer"
You already have a laptop/PC. A lot of gaming can be done with iGPUs so the cost for you would be zero.
If you really want to play big titles, then you are looking at a delta of 300$ (the price of a good GPU) for 5 years, which amounts to 5$ a month.
I don’t see why anybody who has already a computer would pay more money to vendor lock-in themselves into an online-only service, one-store-only, no-mods-allowed, Internet-quality-dependent service.
I can see the appeal for people that wasn’t into computers before that, though. But still, if I were in that case, I would choose a non-locked-in platform at all costs.
You already have a laptop/PC. A lot of gaming can be done with iGPUs so the cost for you would be zero.
If you really want to play big titles, then you are looking at a delta of 300$ (the price of a good GPU) for 5 years, which amounts to 5$ a month.
I don’t see why anybody who has already a computer would pay more money to vendor lock-in themselves into an online-only service, one-store-only, no-mods-allowed, Internet-quality-dependent service.
I can see the appeal for people that wasn’t into computers before that, though. But still, if I were in that case, I would choose a non-locked-in platform at all costs.
Where would that GPU go? My laptop doesn’t have a place for it, and doesn’t have the connections for an eGPU. A $300 delta would only be true if I had a desktop.
I use Paperspace + Parsec for a regular Windows cloud desktop so I’m not locked into anything and pay just a few dollars per month for my gaming.
I use Paperspace + Parsec for a regular Windows cloud desktop so I’m not locked into anything and pay just a few dollars per month for my gaming.
Next to the laptop, believe it or not.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208544
eGPUs are supported by any Thunderbolt 3-equipped Mac1 running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later
The key is to realise that modern cables coming out of laptops are basically extensions of the PCIe bus. The bandwidth through them is phenomenal. It's entirely feasible to run an external GPU.
However, you don't really need one. I am a casual gamer who uses my laptop (got an Xbox too though), and even with the embedded GPU strategy/city building/etc type games work fine and look great. The Mac isn't a good platform if you're a capital-G "Gamer" but if you just want some entertainment on long flights and the like it works just fine. Go grab Steam and off you go. I don't think I'll be using Stadia any time soon as a consequence.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208544
eGPUs are supported by any Thunderbolt 3-equipped Mac1 running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later
The key is to realise that modern cables coming out of laptops are basically extensions of the PCIe bus. The bandwidth through them is phenomenal. It's entirely feasible to run an external GPU.
However, you don't really need one. I am a casual gamer who uses my laptop (got an Xbox too though), and even with the embedded GPU strategy/city building/etc type games work fine and look great. The Mac isn't a good platform if you're a capital-G "Gamer" but if you just want some entertainment on long flights and the like it works just fine. Go grab Steam and off you go. I don't think I'll be using Stadia any time soon as a consequence.
God it's so frustrating to see posts like yours.
https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.asp...
https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.asp...
Thunderbolt 3 based eGPU-s work very well on Windows-based machines, too.
I really dug Paperspace + Parsec when I was using it. Their support is also top-tier; very impressive.
I ended up having too many glitches and lost connections and eventually moved to Shadow.tech and been thrilled with their service (though it's more than a few $'s a month).
I ended up having too many glitches and lost connections and eventually moved to Shadow.tech and been thrilled with their service (though it's more than a few $'s a month).
Nitpick: An RX 570 is like $150, and can do VR acceptably. A $500 build from 5 years ago can still play modern games. A super powerful laptop that most developers insist on having should also game just fine
I’m in a similar boat. Parsec seems to be the right solution:
https://blog.parsecgaming.com/a-seamless-cloud-gaming-experi...
You run a windows vm with a beefy gpu in the cloud, so anything that can run in windows is supported.
I’m definitely rooting for them. I don’t want to introduce a middleman that decides what games can and cannot be distributed.
Also, if parsec or paperspace or microsoft or steam go sideways, it’s easy enough for the industry to bypass them. That won’t be the case if one or two cloud vendors have monopolies over gaming hardware.
https://blog.parsecgaming.com/a-seamless-cloud-gaming-experi...
You run a windows vm with a beefy gpu in the cloud, so anything that can run in windows is supported.
I’m definitely rooting for them. I don’t want to introduce a middleman that decides what games can and cannot be distributed.
Also, if parsec or paperspace or microsoft or steam go sideways, it’s easy enough for the industry to bypass them. That won’t be the case if one or two cloud vendors have monopolies over gaming hardware.
Test before you commit. I just grabbed a 3 month free nvidia geforce now subscription which is same/similar in nature and within the first 30 minutes I knew it was a no-go. I've got Google Fiber Gigabit, and even with that the service was laggy and the fidelity was garbage. Thought it'd be a good way to stop plunking down $1000 on the latest Ti cards every 2-3 years, but alas I was completely unimpressed.
Nvidia doesn’t have the same global network that Google has built so Stadia may have different results for you. I have Fios fiber and my issues with Stadia are not performance related, it’s about the lack of content variety at this point.
Yeah the reason I tested Nvidia instead of Stadia is because Nvidia lets you just use the games you already bought on steam. But you may have a point on performance. Not sure given the trade-offs in ownership that it represents a win either though. Maybe someone will get it right eventually, but for now I'll just stick with a local gaming rig. As hobbies go, even with my overbuilt and often refreshed setup, given the low cost of the games themselves and the number of hours I typically get out of each title I find interesting my dollar cost per hour of entertainment is still quite low compared to other hobbies. shrug
I feel like there's a few more cost effective options than getting a $1000 card every few years lol.
Geforce now probably isn't it, but titans are overkill (unless you're also using them for work.)
Geforce now probably isn't it, but titans are overkill (unless you're also using them for work.)
Titan != Ti. RTX 2080Ti is ~$1200 vs $2500 for the Titan RTX. One is aimed at gamers with too much money the other is geared towards serious professionals with too much money.
I swear that said titans before. Or I'm losing it. (Probably the second)
Either way there are certainly options other than nvidia's most expensive consumer end card.
Either way there are certainly options other than nvidia's most expensive consumer end card.
No worries I got you point I was just being a bit nitpicky. It's true there are cheaper cards but I do like maxing out those settings. To me the main potential draw of a service like stadia or geforce now would be max current possible graphics without max graphics card purchase. Based on what is actually being delivered I am very likely not the target audience. Perhaps it's geared more for people who are deciding between a $400-$500 console or mid-range graphics card outlay or a $5/mo service.
I have both gigabit internet and stadia pro and even still you get stutters and buffering problems. after spending a few hundred on games I canceled the service and simultaneously realized the money spent on games is lost.
NVIDIA geforce now is available for free to play for one hour and is only 5 dollars if you want to play more it can stream your steam library games
I knew Stadia would fail when I first heard about the project. It's a gaming product built by people who clearly have no idea about gaming or typical domestic internet connections.
If they had done some basic market research they could have saved themselves a ton of money.
I have a Ps4 and recently tried out the PS4 now streaming service, and while it was nice to try, I would not subscribe because of one reason: to much lag. And I have a very good internet connection and ethernet connection. I also live in a city where there are datacenters which host service.
Even then the lag was unaccceptable to me and I wouldn't even call myself an avid gamer. I'm just a moderate gamer.
There's only a certain type of game that is feasible over a streaming service and that is slow-paced strategy type games, or adventure games. Anything that requires fast reactions who's work. Kids won't like it. Kids will demand a PS4 or PS5 from their parents.
Putting games like Doom on Stadia is pure idiocy. These are the wrong type of game to put on it.
In any case, it will certainly fail and be shut down pretty soon.
If they had done some basic market research they could have saved themselves a ton of money.
I have a Ps4 and recently tried out the PS4 now streaming service, and while it was nice to try, I would not subscribe because of one reason: to much lag. And I have a very good internet connection and ethernet connection. I also live in a city where there are datacenters which host service.
Even then the lag was unaccceptable to me and I wouldn't even call myself an avid gamer. I'm just a moderate gamer.
There's only a certain type of game that is feasible over a streaming service and that is slow-paced strategy type games, or adventure games. Anything that requires fast reactions who's work. Kids won't like it. Kids will demand a PS4 or PS5 from their parents.
Putting games like Doom on Stadia is pure idiocy. These are the wrong type of game to put on it.
In any case, it will certainly fail and be shut down pretty soon.
Don't underestimate the difference in scale between Google's network and whatever powers the other streaming services...
I'm bearish on streaming games as well, but if there's one company that has the potential and know-how to solve the hard problems, it's Google.
I'm bearish on streaming games as well, but if there's one company that has the potential and know-how to solve the hard problems, it's Google.
I'm sure Google has the edge in terms of technical know-how but launching a successful game streaming service is about so much more than getting pixels on a screen fast.
I think Stadia has come about 20 years too early. Cloud gaming makes sense, but the infrastructure isn't there yet.
I think Stadia has come about 20 years too early. Cloud gaming makes sense, but the infrastructure isn't there yet.
I already have a gaming PC at home and decent rigs in the places I frequent except the places where there is no internet at all. So it’s a no-go temporarily. But in 2 years when my current PC needs an upgrade. Maybe I take streaming services into account and don’t get that high-end graphics card.
But in 2 years it won’t be just Stadia in the games streaming game.
But in 2 years it won’t be just Stadia in the games streaming game.
It already isn't. Nvidia Geforce Now lets me stream (some of) my prebought steam games. And its a pretty satisfying experience.
Their free tier isn't too bad, as of now, too. I see very little sense in buying something on Stadia, when I can buy it on steam and play at my desktop, or stream on my laptop.
Their free tier isn't too bad, as of now, too. I see very little sense in buying something on Stadia, when I can buy it on steam and play at my desktop, or stream on my laptop.
> Stadia simply isn't solving any problem that I have
I see one specific market it could target: visual heavy "walking" simulators. Contemplative games where you don't care too much about input lag but having a powerful rendering hardware could add to the experience.
I see one specific market it could target: visual heavy "walking" simulators. Contemplative games where you don't care too much about input lag but having a powerful rendering hardware could add to the experience.
I have Stadia. The input lag is negligible. Especially when using the Chromecast Ultra on the TV (it seems this has better support than the browser-based option on the PC).
Honestly, they nailed the 'hard part' - technically the platform is incredible, I can pick up the controller and be playing almost immediately with short loading times, no updates etc.
And then they screwed up the launch itself, all the marketing and failed to get a decent library of large games.
It might sort itself out though as they are set to launch the free version next month which will add many more players (so multiplayer without crossplay won't be dead) and equally there are some huge games down the line like Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldurs Gate 3.
I bought it because before I had a gaming PC but to upgrade it I'd have to replace the motherboard and practically every component - whereas with Stadia I can play on my PC with kb+m or on my TV with controller etc. depending on how I feel and it's easier to get in and play.
I hope they sort out the problems as I feel it has a lot of potential.
Honestly, they nailed the 'hard part' - technically the platform is incredible, I can pick up the controller and be playing almost immediately with short loading times, no updates etc.
And then they screwed up the launch itself, all the marketing and failed to get a decent library of large games.
It might sort itself out though as they are set to launch the free version next month which will add many more players (so multiplayer without crossplay won't be dead) and equally there are some huge games down the line like Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldurs Gate 3.
I bought it because before I had a gaming PC but to upgrade it I'd have to replace the motherboard and practically every component - whereas with Stadia I can play on my PC with kb+m or on my TV with controller etc. depending on how I feel and it's easier to get in and play.
I hope they sort out the problems as I feel it has a lot of potential.
Apparently they also heavily botched the developer experience, when reading across some of the sources on the dev community.
Think Android NDK, just worse. At least that is what I get from those comments.
Think Android NDK, just worse. At least that is what I get from those comments.
Not giving Microsoft a few million dollars so the server backend was built on Windows instead of Linux was a catastrophic error.
It vastly increases the work required by devs for very little incentive.
If they launched and made a go of it? You could make a slow transition. But up front? Insane.
It vastly increases the work required by devs for very little incentive.
If they launched and made a go of it? You could make a slow transition. But up front? Insane.
What reason to Microsoft have to play ball, though? They would be enabling competition with the XBox line.
Microsoft signed a deal with Sony to support their cloud initiatives for gaming, so clearly Microsoft does not see it as an issue.
It's possible Microsoft doesn't have an issue dealing with the incumbent, but won't help a challenger; the Play Station has outsold the XBox for the past 2 generations.
The way I see it is the competition is happening anyway, why not make money from every major player in the market?
> I have Stadia. The input lag is negligible.
I don’t see how this is possible if they are sending player input to a server somewhere with a 50ms ping. That’s a full twentieth of a second, not counting any lag at all from the server side.
I guess if you play an MMO or something that doesn’t care about lag it wouldn’t matter but I don’t see how you could play even a simple fighting game like Street Fighter 2 with that kind of lag, except at the most basic level.
I don’t see how this is possible if they are sending player input to a server somewhere with a 50ms ping. That’s a full twentieth of a second, not counting any lag at all from the server side.
I guess if you play an MMO or something that doesn’t care about lag it wouldn’t matter but I don’t see how you could play even a simple fighting game like Street Fighter 2 with that kind of lag, except at the most basic level.
It really is negligible. The controller is a wifi controller connecting directly to the player's Stadia instance which helps combat latency.
As for a game like SF, I am not sure. They have MK on Stadia and I hear people enjoy it but I don't know what the latency is like.
As for a game like SF, I am not sure. They have MK on Stadia and I hear people enjoy it but I don't know what the latency is like.
I get 20 ms to paperspace (using it with parsec). The lag is good enough to play super meat boy.
This is with wifi hitting a local router, to a separate wifi access point, then wifi to my desktop. None of the network equipment is “gaming grade”.
FWIW: At 60 ms (due to a misconfiguration) super meat boy was unplayable.
This is with wifi hitting a local router, to a separate wifi access point, then wifi to my desktop. None of the network equipment is “gaming grade”.
FWIW: At 60 ms (due to a misconfiguration) super meat boy was unplayable.
It's Google. They seem to have hundreds or even thousands of edge data centers all over the world, and it's plausible they'd put Stadia servers into all of them. Which means that a decent fraction of the population will have ping times that are much lower.
Most people do have 10-25 ms latency to their servers. Ping isn't the problem here though, the problem is that you have to download the frame. That just takes a while. Input lag is like 150 ms.
The reason some people think that is absolutely insane and ridiculous is simply perception. I switched from 100 Hz CRTs to 120, then 165 Hz LCDs. Console games to me are unplayable already. Obviously, Stadia in it's current form is entire useless to me, no matter what game I'm playing because it just feels bad.
However, people who mostly played 30 FPS console games their entire lives, can usually play on stadia perfectly fine. The input lag isn't that much worse.
The reason some people think that is absolutely insane and ridiculous is simply perception. I switched from 100 Hz CRTs to 120, then 165 Hz LCDs. Console games to me are unplayable already. Obviously, Stadia in it's current form is entire useless to me, no matter what game I'm playing because it just feels bad.
However, people who mostly played 30 FPS console games their entire lives, can usually play on stadia perfectly fine. The input lag isn't that much worse.
I got a Stadia though some re-seller partner program at work. Honestly it plays really well for me. I often forget I'm playing a game in a browser. The problem is lack of games and the controller on PC still has to be plugged in.
Geforce Now is free for 3 months, go try it and you'll see. Input lag is negligible. 50 ms is not representative either, it much less than that.
If Google want to get into gaming, they should have released a high-spec console with android OS, which could play existing android games, but also compete with PS4 and the upcoming PS5.
If they did that, they could offer cloud gaming as a niche service on that platform, to test the waters, meanwhile they are building up a solid user base.
Instead they decided to go all-in on unproven technology, launched with barely any games available and no clear path forward.
If they did that, they could offer cloud gaming as a niche service on that platform, to test the waters, meanwhile they are building up a solid user base.
Instead they decided to go all-in on unproven technology, launched with barely any games available and no clear path forward.
It's weird seeing comments like this in HN. The "proven" approach is just a less controversial way of lighting money on fire.
Google wasn't going "all in" on "unproven" technology. They were making a strategic investment in a new market segment using technologies and people that it already was an expert in rather than trying to follow the footsteps of competitors that have several decades lead on them. And they're not betting the bank on stadia. They could turn it off tomorrow and it wouldn't make a blip of difference to the health of the company.
Google wasn't going "all in" on "unproven" technology. They were making a strategic investment in a new market segment using technologies and people that it already was an expert in rather than trying to follow the footsteps of competitors that have several decades lead on them. And they're not betting the bank on stadia. They could turn it off tomorrow and it wouldn't make a blip of difference to the health of the company.
Wow. This is an absurdly valid point, that would’ve been the way to go.
It’s true that at this moment - I don’t even know what, other than the streaming side, Stadia is even based on.
Edit: Apparently it’s Debian and Vulkan? Because that’s what every game developer uses as their tool chain, right? eye roll
It’s true that at this moment - I don’t even know what, other than the streaming side, Stadia is even based on.
Edit: Apparently it’s Debian and Vulkan? Because that’s what every game developer uses as their tool chain, right? eye roll
How do you explain Windows Mobile?
Microsoft supported Windows Phone for a long time after it was clear that it would never take off.
Microsoft is really good at supporting products it releases even if they don't take off, at least when it comes to software.
Microsoft is really good at supporting products it releases even if they don't take off, at least when it comes to software.
Just got my last security update for my Windows Mobile phone two months ago. Years after they stopped making new phones and everyone considered the platform “dead”. Microsoft’s commitment to dead projects is pretty incredible, it’s probably the one huge strength they have. You know Microsoft will stick with their product regardless of its success.
backwards compatibility is Microsoft's motto
I think for Windows Mobile, their persistence and slowness made them fail.
They kept trying to improve Windows CE based systems (not going to list all the renames) which were a very poor base to build on. When they finally decided to switch to a new OS/GUI they were slow and managed it badly. When it came out and they had good hardware as well they were way too late.
Nobody can say that Microsoft didn't pour everything into Windows Mobile.
But by the time they finally had a really good OS, developer interest simply wasn't there anymore and a mobile platform lives or dies by it's app store.
Gaming is different because you have the advantage of being able to court and fund exclusive titles eg Halo and Gears of War
But by the time they finally had a really good OS, developer interest simply wasn't there anymore and a mobile platform lives or dies by it's app store.
Gaming is different because you have the advantage of being able to court and fund exclusive titles eg Halo and Gears of War
The mobile platform is inherently different from desktop - what made the desktop OS flourish constrained their thinking when they went with Windows Mobile.
Gaming, on the other hand... it's not like they weren't dealing with games on the desktop before Xbox. I remember reading somewhere that the Xbox is just a desktop PC in a different case, if you take a look at the components.
That's correct - the Xbox was about 95% COTS PC components. It had a Pentium 3, a Geforce 3 deriviative, 64MB DDR RAM, and a 8GB IDE HDD. Compare that to the PowerPC or MIPS processors and custom GPUs the competition was using at the time.
Its so much worse in this case than other google services. Normally when google kills a service you just move to an alternative, no big deal. But now google is holding on to hundreds to thousands of your dollars in game purchases. They obviously wont keep running a server for you for free forever so eventually if you use stadia you will lose your games. Its just a matter of when.
This is the thing that baffles me the most. You pay the full price for games you don't even own? At least with Steam there's the possibility of downloading your library in case Steam ever goes away for whatever reason.
The other thing is - they must, must be playing the multi-year long game here. Infrastructure around the world just isn't ready for game streaming.
Having said that, from what I hear GeForce Now is giving people a FAR better experience than Stadia.
Now that I think about it, why did they even rush Stadia out? I never got the impression anyone was dying to get their hands on it. They could have given it another year of polish at least and nobody would have complained, surely?
I'd love to hear Google's internal rationale for why they thought this pricing model was a good idea.
The other thing is - they must, must be playing the multi-year long game here. Infrastructure around the world just isn't ready for game streaming.
Having said that, from what I hear GeForce Now is giving people a FAR better experience than Stadia.
Now that I think about it, why did they even rush Stadia out? I never got the impression anyone was dying to get their hands on it. They could have given it another year of polish at least and nobody would have complained, surely?
I'd love to hear Google's internal rationale for why they thought this pricing model was a good idea.
"At least with Steam there's the possibility of downloading your library in case Steam ever goes away for whatever reason."
Most games on Steam require activation through Steam servers, so unlikely. Also in case Steam went under, there would most likely be legal issues at play, preventing Steam from issuing any sort of no DRM fix.
Most games on Steam require activation through Steam servers, so unlikely. Also in case Steam went under, there would most likely be legal issues at play, preventing Steam from issuing any sort of no DRM fix.
Cracking the steam DRM seems like a case of dropping a dll
Yep, Pretty much everything on steam has a crack. You can't do this with streamed games.
The Steam DRM doesn't appear to be too terribly difficult to crack, considering there are so many cracks of steam games out there.
A few possible reasons:
1. You can't foresee competition, why give up early.
2. It's a big market, worth a shot even if it fails.
3. Someone thought the project would be good for their promotion. This happens more frequently than you might think :)
1. You can't foresee competition, why give up early.
2. It's a big market, worth a shot even if it fails.
3. Someone thought the project would be good for their promotion. This happens more frequently than you might think :)
You’re probably right, but worth a shot even if it fails is a terrible reason. Not only will they screw over their customers, but they’ll get even more of a reputation for doing so than they have already.
If you keep on moving fast and breaking things, people who don’t like it when you break their stuff are going to think twice about trusting you.
If you keep on moving fast and breaking things, people who don’t like it when you break their stuff are going to think twice about trusting you.
[deleted]
Item 3.... Google's promotion process is heavily biased towards launching of new products
>Now that I think about it, why did they even rush Stadia out?
The reason for that is as you say, they're playing the long game here. They know it won't make money, not today, not next year, not in 3 years. But in 10 years it could make billions. And getting actual user data and feedback early while you're building the architecture is probably worth a lot.
The reason for that is as you say, they're playing the long game here. They know it won't make money, not today, not next year, not in 3 years. But in 10 years it could make billions. And getting actual user data and feedback early while you're building the architecture is probably worth a lot.
>At least with Steam there's the possibility of downloading your library in case Steam ever goes away for whatever reason.
It's also much cheaper in most case. In average I paid less than 5$ per game on Steam (and that include many full price games).
It's also much cheaper in most case. In average I paid less than 5$ per game on Steam (and that include many full price games).
I agree with most of what you say.
One thing: some pockets of the world do have good enough internet already, and they are only going to multiply.
One thing: some pockets of the world do have good enough internet already, and they are only going to multiply.
Even with the most amazing internet, there is nothing less reliable than a network.
I've traveled in so many countries, and the ones with the best fiber in the world can't guaranty a stable ping for the entire day.
This is what makes so many online games frustrating. I played MOBAs for a long time, and there is nothing more irritating than losing because you didn't get an information at the right time.
Now a non multiplayer game is not real time, so you can put mitigation measures in place, but it can't fix everything, especially for games where the rhythm is important: plateformers, FPS, racing games, etc.
We put up with it in multi-players game because there is no alternative.
But are you going to tolerate than sometimes, randomly, you are going to die because the network had a spike in ping when playing Mario or Cod when you could play comfortably on your TV locally ?
Remember the joke: videos games don't make kids violent. The lag does.
I've traveled in so many countries, and the ones with the best fiber in the world can't guaranty a stable ping for the entire day.
This is what makes so many online games frustrating. I played MOBAs for a long time, and there is nothing more irritating than losing because you didn't get an information at the right time.
Now a non multiplayer game is not real time, so you can put mitigation measures in place, but it can't fix everything, especially for games where the rhythm is important: plateformers, FPS, racing games, etc.
We put up with it in multi-players game because there is no alternative.
But are you going to tolerate than sometimes, randomly, you are going to die because the network had a spike in ping when playing Mario or Cod when you could play comfortably on your TV locally ?
Remember the joke: videos games don't make kids violent. The lag does.
Oh, I was mostly interested in Stadia (but never played it), when I was looking to play some single player games that my local machine couldn't handle.
I wouldn't mind the occasional bad lag nearly as much as in a competitive multiplayer fast-reactions game.
I wouldn't mind the occasional bad lag nearly as much as in a competitive multiplayer fast-reactions game.
I guess you don't intend to play dark soul :)
I can play that on the Nintendo Switch in my hand. No need for the extra graphics power.
I was thinking of eg XCOM 2.
I was thinking of eg XCOM 2.
Yeah turn by turn is a perfect use case.
It doesn't have to be that way either. Nvidia is offering a service which streams games you've already purchased off Steam et el. If their service shuts down you still get to keep your games.
Nvidia is already having issues with major publishers pulling games saying they don't have a license to install and use them that way. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
I fail to see how it should be any different legally. If I pick up my pc and put it in a datacenter and stream the video output that would be perfectly fine.
In this case the game is already installed on the image/server belonging to Nvidia. Perhaps hundreds or thousands of times. And I suppose they did pay for those copies and the argument is that it's like you are just borrowing their PC to play a game. But I think the counter-argument is that this is more in the realms of "performance" similar to how you can't just buy a music CD and play it in a bar for an audience.
I have no idea what the legal ramifications really are, but I don't think there's anything morally wrong with the service they are providing. If companies really believed in the whole "selling a license" thing more of them would be willing to provide cross-platform copies for free once you own one instead of grabbing another sale.
I have no idea what the legal ramifications really are, but I don't think there's anything morally wrong with the service they are providing. If companies really believed in the whole "selling a license" thing more of them would be willing to provide cross-platform copies for free once you own one instead of grabbing another sale.
I would _have_ to imagine that if this were the case, they would issue full refunds. It'd be inviting some class action cases and it's almost certainly a drop in the bucket for them anyway.
It's even worse than that. Even if they add a download option, you can't be sure if any of your games will run on your hardware.
As a developer, you have an additional burden of testing on and optimizing for Google's hardware, which are apparently different from consumer hardware.
As a developer, you have an additional burden of testing on and optimizing for Google's hardware, which are apparently different from consumer hardware.
You are absolutely right, that is a horrible reputation to have, especially if you are a TECH company.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Google which was an industry gold standard for innovation and job satisfaction has become anything but.
What I found most interesting is how Microsoft and Google have seemingly changed roles.
Microsoft was the old boring behemoth while Google was riding the front wave.
I guess complacency really is a silent killer.
I would really love to hear Brin's or Page's thoughts regarding the current Google
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Google which was an industry gold standard for innovation and job satisfaction has become anything but.
What I found most interesting is how Microsoft and Google have seemingly changed roles.
Microsoft was the old boring behemoth while Google was riding the front wave.
I guess complacency really is a silent killer.
I would really love to hear Brin's or Page's thoughts regarding the current Google
You are absolutely right, that is a horrible reputation to have, especially if you are a TECH company.
It's been worse. Google bought all those robotics companies a few years ago. Some, such as Bot and Dolly, had real customers, and the customers were cut off. All the companies they bought were silenced - no papers, no demos, nothing. People in robotics outside Google land thought Google must be doing something spectacular. No. Just a total botch with no plan. Google ended up dumping all those companies. Some just folded. Google basically trashed the advanced robotics industry.
At least Google isn't buying game companies and trashing them.
It's been worse. Google bought all those robotics companies a few years ago. Some, such as Bot and Dolly, had real customers, and the customers were cut off. All the companies they bought were silenced - no papers, no demos, nothing. People in robotics outside Google land thought Google must be doing something spectacular. No. Just a total botch with no plan. Google ended up dumping all those companies. Some just folded. Google basically trashed the advanced robotics industry.
At least Google isn't buying game companies and trashing them.
Didn't Google buy a game company recently to work entirely in-house? So not sure how long until they get shut down.
Though I think the game industry is kind of used to that by now. Big giants like EA, Activision, Microsoft, etc keep buying smaller studios and shutting them down after a few years and a few projects.
I kind of hope that isn't the case with the studios that Microsoft has purchased recently.
Though I think the game industry is kind of used to that by now. Big giants like EA, Activision, Microsoft, etc keep buying smaller studios and shutting them down after a few years and a few projects.
I kind of hope that isn't the case with the studios that Microsoft has purchased recently.
More assembled a game studio themselves.
Although one suspects talent will start to flee very shortly.
Although one suspects talent will start to flee very shortly.
Most of them where bought so Andy Rubin has something other than Android to play with.
they stepped away and promoted Pichai
>That's a terrible reputation for any company to have.
Part of me wonders if this is due to the fact that google doesn't hire traditional sysadmins.
It might sound weird, because convention has become that you can "dev" your way out of "ops" and that SRE is the new hotness- but consider the fact that (as a gross generalisation) developers don't like maintaining stuff, it's much more beneficial for your own sanity and to present to management: new things! especially shiny things.
Sysadmins however think the opposite; how can we take $legacyThing and make it better, always the eye on maintenance and longevity. SRE's solve for reliability but not maintainability or longevity.
EDIT: guess I hit some peoples nerves, could someone elaborate on why?
Part of me wonders if this is due to the fact that google doesn't hire traditional sysadmins.
It might sound weird, because convention has become that you can "dev" your way out of "ops" and that SRE is the new hotness- but consider the fact that (as a gross generalisation) developers don't like maintaining stuff, it's much more beneficial for your own sanity and to present to management: new things! especially shiny things.
Sysadmins however think the opposite; how can we take $legacyThing and make it better, always the eye on maintenance and longevity. SRE's solve for reliability but not maintainability or longevity.
EDIT: guess I hit some peoples nerves, could someone elaborate on why?
I think it's likely to be a product of internal incentives and how these create a culture. I would be prepared to wager than it's much easier to get a promotion by working on a new hot thing than on maintaining or improving an existing thing.
Scroll forward a couple of years and you have a reputation for just abandoning existing things rather than improving them, because people individually maximise their own career advancement by migrating off difficult maintenance and improvement projects on to "new hotness" projects only to abandon them again later for an "even newer hotness".
Small organizations have an immune system that rejects bullshit like that but as orgs grow they institutionalize and it becomes harder and harder for them not to succumb.
Scroll forward a couple of years and you have a reputation for just abandoning existing things rather than improving them, because people individually maximise their own career advancement by migrating off difficult maintenance and improvement projects on to "new hotness" projects only to abandon them again later for an "even newer hotness".
Small organizations have an immune system that rejects bullshit like that but as orgs grow they institutionalize and it becomes harder and harder for them not to succumb.
I think your analysis of DevOps and SRE is spot on.
Most developers make terrible operators. Devops shops also sometimes shift release management and QA tasks onto developers.
Most developers are terrible at those roles too (and most are uninterested in learning them). I’m good (for a developer; mediocre-to-poor vs specialists) at some of the non-developer roles I mentioned, but I hate doing them, and am better at developing software anyway.
Continuous deployment “saves” the system by just throwing something over the wall at customers. This means you always meet the development metrics that get passed up to upper management.
SRE’s optimize for minimizing the number of pages generated by the monitoring system.
All of the positions that acted as customer advocates or considered long term development roadmap (beyond a few sprints) are eliminated in such shops, so even successful products end up being a flash in the pan. At best, they get too popular to shut down, and immediately stagnate.
I’ve seen this play out in multiple organizations from multiple different angles over the years.
Most developers make terrible operators. Devops shops also sometimes shift release management and QA tasks onto developers.
Most developers are terrible at those roles too (and most are uninterested in learning them). I’m good (for a developer; mediocre-to-poor vs specialists) at some of the non-developer roles I mentioned, but I hate doing them, and am better at developing software anyway.
Continuous deployment “saves” the system by just throwing something over the wall at customers. This means you always meet the development metrics that get passed up to upper management.
SRE’s optimize for minimizing the number of pages generated by the monitoring system.
All of the positions that acted as customer advocates or considered long term development roadmap (beyond a few sprints) are eliminated in such shops, so even successful products end up being a flash in the pan. At best, they get too popular to shut down, and immediately stagnate.
I’ve seen this play out in multiple organizations from multiple different angles over the years.
I work at Improbable. Not an official comment, but we're an independent company and Google has no investment in us, though we do have a partnership with them, like we do with other companies like Tencent Cloud. We do support large MMOs, but our networking can handle lots of game types so we have a range of hosting methods - public cloud, bare metal, hybrid. AFAIK, the pricing for SpatialOS is comparable with other managed services for multiplayer - there are examples on our site. And we don't just do networking, we do co-dev, managed hosting, server orchestration, consulting, etc, etc. I guess go read our website if you want to know more?
Google should come forward with a 'Guaranteed to not shutdown for X years' or like LTS plan to save its reputation. Perhaps being open-source e.g. Flutter, gives them a excuse.
Google stated that they were into Google+ "for the long haul", in October, 2014.
https://www.vox.com/2014/10/7/11631634/new-google-head-david...
A month earlier I'd suggested 4-5 years, earily on-mark:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190115022452/https://plus.goog...
(I'd made a few other predictions, but they were roughly in line with that. I insist it was a fluke.)
And it turns out that it was very nearly precisely five years later that the service folded.
This on what had been a "bet-the-company" effort in 2011:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-aims-to-subtract-users-...
https://www.vox.com/2014/10/7/11631634/new-google-head-david...
A month earlier I'd suggested 4-5 years, earily on-mark:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190115022452/https://plus.goog...
(I'd made a few other predictions, but they were roughly in line with that. I insist it was a fluke.)
And it turns out that it was very nearly precisely five years later that the service folded.
This on what had been a "bet-the-company" effort in 2011:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-aims-to-subtract-users-...
Killing Google+ was the worst reputation loss in my eyes. I understand that some people didn't like it, but I personally liked it for pictures and tech stuff (I think even Linus used it). Not to mention, it almost brought proper comments to YouTube, one could discuss properly. So close.
It was the only true competitor to FB, it would've needed to steal more features from Facebook but with G+'s touch, but nothing happened for years, they lost the vision to topple FB.
It was the only true competitor to FB, it would've needed to steal more features from Facebook but with G+'s touch, but nothing happened for years, they lost the vision to topple FB.
Killing it in the way they did was painfully bad. No way I'll rely further on Google services, or recommend them to anyone.
A major security vulnerability in Google + was the nail on the coffin, If I remember correctly. May be they worried G+ was not worth sued over by EU.
That was the stated reason.
Given the dissembling surrounding G+ from the very beginning, credibility of that rationale is ... low.
Given the dissembling surrounding G+ from the very beginning, credibility of that rationale is ... low.
s/earily/eerily/
Google can't save their reputation with a marketing message. The only thing that would rebuild it is to not shut down any services for the couple of decades. They're not going to do that though, so Google is now effectively a 'short-term' products company as far as anything new goes.
For consumers that's fine. They understand the situation and approach Google products with that knowledge. Stadia is a good example.
The people who should be most wary of this policy are Googlers who are looking for a team to join.
For consumers that's fine. They understand the situation and approach Google products with that knowledge. Stadia is a good example.
The people who should be most wary of this policy are Googlers who are looking for a team to join.
I read this in an opinion piece that promotions and bonuses at Google are issued for launching things - products, face lifts, new features - not necessarily maintaining applications (maybe with the exception of search and advertising).
So taking that lens it's easy to see why so many new products are launched but then fall away and are killed, because the people involved can get their money and then move on to do other things. Also explains the constant user hostile redesigns of existing products.
To fix the reputation in this regard the internal reward structures would need to be changed so that building new things is the only way to get ahead.
So taking that lens it's easy to see why so many new products are launched but then fall away and are killed, because the people involved can get their money and then move on to do other things. Also explains the constant user hostile redesigns of existing products.
To fix the reputation in this regard the internal reward structures would need to be changed so that building new things is the only way to get ahead.
"The people who should be most wary of this policy are Googlers who are looking for a team to join."
Only building new shiny things from scratch and never having to support them? Doesn't sound like a bad deal.
Only building new shiny things from scratch and never having to support them? Doesn't sound like a bad deal.
At the start of my career I was all about the tech, and I would probably have agreed with you. But now, with around 23 years of building web things behind me, I've realised that what keeps me interested is the fact that tens of millions of people have found what I've contributed to useful and interesting. Without that I would have given up and got bored.
Most people (certainly everyone I've ever worked with) need to have positive external input and feedback on the work they do to drive them forward, and if you're not getting that and the feedback is repeatedly "Meh, it'll just be killed in a few years" it would eventually start to impact your confidence and ability to do good work.
Most people (certainly everyone I've ever worked with) need to have positive external input and feedback on the work they do to drive them forward, and if you're not getting that and the feedback is repeatedly "Meh, it'll just be killed in a few years" it would eventually start to impact your confidence and ability to do good work.
Given that it's Google, for Stadia they have the financial means to reimburse their customers (and buy out the game developers / publishers) if they want to shut it down - and it's heading that way fast.
I feel the same. Google simply has no patience. Though they need that because they simply have no track-record in that industry.
It's the same with Google Cloud. They have that huge global infrastructure essentially running their own internet, just with 4 times the bandwidth. They have piles of cash and it looks like they are running out of ideas of what to do with it.
In 2018 they announced their 5 year plan to overtake Microsoft and possibly AWS in marketshare for public cloud computing. If they don't achieve that they said they'd simply stop putting money in this business and leave "partners" to fill the gap. To me that reads they'll effectively stop expanding GCP capabilities which would mean the end to that service.
It's two years later and while GCP is certainly growing, so is the rest and their marketshare is still miniscule.
Is is patience, or just the difficulty in being an appreciable portion of revenue vs the ads driven businesses (search/ads/gmail)?
Let’s not kid ourselves. Stadia aside, Improbable is obviously a vaporware company woefully out of their league with an absurd valuation from equally uninformed investors from softbank’s utter failure of a fund.
I don't think they're quite that bad. The software itself exists and has shipped games and prototypes. I just don't see much market for it.
Not surprising. I don't feel Google is setup to be a platform business (even though that's a lot of what they do!).
Employee mindset isn't on keeping a platform running or improving but instead chasing the next-best-thing.
That's how you end up with x programming languages, y services and 1000 messaging/chat apps.
That's how you end up with x programming languages, y services and 1000 messaging/chat apps.
As so that's what Improbable do. They're tried to hit me up on LinkedIn several times.
It's really just a meme I hear on hn and the likes. I've never heard a "normal person" despair that Google cancels projects all the time.
I have Stadia! Here are a few impressions:
1. The game catalog is totally the most important thing and they don't have any really big games. I'm not a Fortnite person, but they don't have that, nor Apex, nor PUBG. Battle Royale may not be the biggest thing in gaming anymore, but this is the type of game that at least a lot of people enjoy and they have none on the platform.
2. They sold Stadia as being able to achieve higher quality than local hardware at a fraction of the cost. Yet it's been shown multiple times that the games running on Stadia are running at less than promised quality, with techniques like upscaling being used for 4K instead of native 4K: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/11/google-addresses-comp....
3. As a person who wants to play with a keyboard and a mouse on a computer, I get really frustrated that the Stadia output resolution is fixed. You can't output 1440p to a monitor at all, and 4K is only available if you have a Chromecast. Why?
I've also tried Shadow and GeForce now. Shadow is easily the best in terms of quality, because you can run at arbitrary resolutions and pump the bandwidth up to a max of 70Mbps down, which is astoundingly good looking compared to what Stadia offers. GeForce Now is great too, but point 3 applies to it: you can't run at non-preset resolutions, which really stinks if you have a bigger monitor with a higher native resolution. However, both Shadow and GeForce Now leverage existing game libraries, look better, and are generally more approachable than Stadia's "rebuy everything, run at lower quality, and lack significant features" plan.
1. The game catalog is totally the most important thing and they don't have any really big games. I'm not a Fortnite person, but they don't have that, nor Apex, nor PUBG. Battle Royale may not be the biggest thing in gaming anymore, but this is the type of game that at least a lot of people enjoy and they have none on the platform.
2. They sold Stadia as being able to achieve higher quality than local hardware at a fraction of the cost. Yet it's been shown multiple times that the games running on Stadia are running at less than promised quality, with techniques like upscaling being used for 4K instead of native 4K: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/11/google-addresses-comp....
3. As a person who wants to play with a keyboard and a mouse on a computer, I get really frustrated that the Stadia output resolution is fixed. You can't output 1440p to a monitor at all, and 4K is only available if you have a Chromecast. Why?
I've also tried Shadow and GeForce now. Shadow is easily the best in terms of quality, because you can run at arbitrary resolutions and pump the bandwidth up to a max of 70Mbps down, which is astoundingly good looking compared to what Stadia offers. GeForce Now is great too, but point 3 applies to it: you can't run at non-preset resolutions, which really stinks if you have a bigger monitor with a higher native resolution. However, both Shadow and GeForce Now leverage existing game libraries, look better, and are generally more approachable than Stadia's "rebuy everything, run at lower quality, and lack significant features" plan.
>Yet it's been shown multiple times that the games running on Stadia are running at less than promised quality, with techniques like upscaling being used for 4K instead of native 4K
I remember having tons of fun playing Portal and Left 4 Dead with buddies in my dorm room when 720p was pretty high end. Is 4K really that necessary to have a good time with a video game?
Or perhaps I'm... officially old :(
I remember having tons of fun playing Portal and Left 4 Dead with buddies in my dorm room when 720p was pretty high end. Is 4K really that necessary to have a good time with a video game?
Or perhaps I'm... officially old :(
I don't really care for 4K personally. I just want "native" because I can't stand looking at blurry interfaces. I can definitely tell when I'm running a 1080p game on a 1440p native monitor and everything is being stretched up. I would take lower settings just to have a clear UI, but I can't do that.
In terms of raw quality with streaming game services, bitrate matters much more than resolution. 4K mandates higher bitrate to deliver the pixels in a timely fashion. All of the services have some upper cap on bitrate, and if you can drive that up (can downstream clients support it?) then you can increase the streamed game quality to be closer to what's actually being output. This is most noticeable in areas where it's extremely dark or shadow detail is important, less so in light settings.
But either way, quality is a combination of the game settings (what is being output to the card), the output resolution (the scale of things you see), and the bitrate (what is being sent down for you to actually view). If these three components are mis-tuned, the quality of the image you're looking at will be lower due to one of those components.
In terms of raw quality with streaming game services, bitrate matters much more than resolution. 4K mandates higher bitrate to deliver the pixels in a timely fashion. All of the services have some upper cap on bitrate, and if you can drive that up (can downstream clients support it?) then you can increase the streamed game quality to be closer to what's actually being output. This is most noticeable in areas where it's extremely dark or shadow detail is important, less so in light settings.
But either way, quality is a combination of the game settings (what is being output to the card), the output resolution (the scale of things you see), and the bitrate (what is being sent down for you to actually view). If these three components are mis-tuned, the quality of the image you're looking at will be lower due to one of those components.
I agree with Linus from LTT where he said it's because the TV and Phone industry have effectively ignored 1440p as a resolution. Movies are either HD (1080p) or 4k and so TV and phone panels are made in those resolutions. Monitors may be 1440p (which I find most useful) but only native PC games actually output at that resolution.
This really goes to show that Stadia is a video streaming platform (i.e. something to help compete with Twitch) rather than a game playing platform.
This really goes to show that Stadia is a video streaming platform (i.e. something to help compete with Twitch) rather than a game playing platform.
If they didn't advertise 4K in the first place, then turn out to lie about it by upscaling, probably would remove a lot of these complaints.
Stadia and other streaming/remote services like this big selling point is giving customers access to higher fidelity content, without having to pay for the hardware to render that high fidelity content, and marketing has made a big deal about that supposed feature. It's why they take so much flak for not being able to deliver that fidelity.
Sure, but why would you pay Google for that same experience when you can already get it at a very low cost?
4k on a 27" screen at desk-sitting distance is worth whatever trouble you've been avoiding.
Text is indistinguishable from print type. You're able to see an enormous amount of information without panning. With a good mouse you can pick and rubber-band much larger groups.
Text is indistinguishable from print type. You're able to see an enormous amount of information without panning. With a good mouse you can pick and rubber-band much larger groups.
I had stadia too.
Some more impressions :
- the tech is on point ! Playing on my 4k tv, it looks pretty incredible and plays just fine.
- the launch catalog is ... disappointing. I played a little bit with the releases games. There was nothing of interest to me. There are some great games on the platform .. but I have already played them. I have zero interest in Destiny 2 (one of the free launch games for pro subscribers).
- nit : I might be very tempted to try stadia again IF I could play doom eternal with a mouse and keyboard on my tv (with the expectation that the game will be worth playing).
Some of this could have been solved by shoving tons of money in the direction of some studios so that stadia got some big exclusive games at launch.
Even the "orc must die" games that will come later this year might have been enough for me to keep the "founder" edition past the 2 weeks return period. That's not a big license like Zelda that will get people to buy just because of the brand name but at least a game where I have some fond memories (and the orcs catapulting physics could use stadia's backend.
- the tech is on point ! Playing on my 4k tv, it looks pretty incredible and plays just fine.
- the launch catalog is ... disappointing. I played a little bit with the releases games. There was nothing of interest to me. There are some great games on the platform .. but I have already played them. I have zero interest in Destiny 2 (one of the free launch games for pro subscribers).
- nit : I might be very tempted to try stadia again IF I could play doom eternal with a mouse and keyboard on my tv (with the expectation that the game will be worth playing).
Some of this could have been solved by shoving tons of money in the direction of some studios so that stadia got some big exclusive games at launch.
Even the "orc must die" games that will come later this year might have been enough for me to keep the "founder" edition past the 2 weeks return period. That's not a big license like Zelda that will get people to buy just because of the brand name but at least a game where I have some fond memories (and the orcs catapulting physics could use stadia's backend.
> I'm not a Fortnite person, but they don't have that, nor Apex.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't yet really have cross-platform support? Without that these games wouldn't be very fun. Also, I don't think Stadias current model is really designed to work with F2P games. Maybe if you have a Pro subscription that can pay for it.
Really though, what we have right now feels like an early access, and it's unfortunate how poorly they marketed it. Like, it makes no sense why I can't even use the controller with PC/Mobile wirelessly yet. The issues you mentioned too, all those things sound like they will be eventually fixed, but right now what we have is clearly unfinished.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't yet really have cross-platform support? Without that these games wouldn't be very fun. Also, I don't think Stadias current model is really designed to work with F2P games. Maybe if you have a Pro subscription that can pay for it.
Really though, what we have right now feels like an early access, and it's unfortunate how poorly they marketed it. Like, it makes no sense why I can't even use the controller with PC/Mobile wirelessly yet. The issues you mentioned too, all those things sound like they will be eventually fixed, but right now what we have is clearly unfinished.
Fortnite has cross-platform, Apex Legends does not. Personally, I only see negativity around the way cross-platform was implemented into Fortnite.
Those games were all fun. before they added cross platform support. I would say that has helped hose games spread but not their fun.
You didn't mention latency once which is by far my biggest technical concern. The Battle Royale games you mentioned in particular wouldn't work well with any noticeable latency.
I've seen some people mention that latency makes some FPS games unplayable on the game streaming platforms they've tried. Which is fine if it's a physical limitation, there are other genres to enjoy, we should just be aware of what it's good for.
I've seen some people mention that latency makes some FPS games unplayable on the game streaming platforms they've tried. Which is fine if it's a physical limitation, there are other genres to enjoy, we should just be aware of what it's good for.
I've been playing Red Dead 2 on it and never had any latency issues at all.
Technically, Stadia is perfect.
It's just the poor handling of the launch and the current lack of games that is disappointing.
Although tbh by the time I've finished Red Dead I guess there will be more games.
I'm more scared of Google just killing the platform.
Technically, Stadia is perfect.
It's just the poor handling of the launch and the current lack of games that is disappointing.
Although tbh by the time I've finished Red Dead I guess there will be more games.
I'm more scared of Google just killing the platform.
Red Dead 2 probably isn't the best game to test latency with, considering how much latency is added by the game itself for the sake of more realistic animations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqMqeuwxwVg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqMqeuwxwVg
What pissed me off is that I purchased a second chromecast ultra so I could game on my TV in one room and projector in another room. But it only worked with the specific chromecast that came with my controller for like months.
> However, both Shadow and GeForce Now leverage existing game libraries, look better, and are generally more approachable than Stadia's "rebuy everything, run at lower quality, and lack significant features" plan.
The old joke when you read a fortune cookie out loud, is to say "in bed" afterwards - "Things will look up soon... in bed." When talking about the performance of game streaming services you need a similar qualifier at the end... "for me". "<x> streaming services performs better than <y>.... for me"
That's because experiences with the various streaming services can't be generalized so easily. GeForce now is an absolutely miserable experience... for me. However, Stadia is fantastic... for me.
The old joke when you read a fortune cookie out loud, is to say "in bed" afterwards - "Things will look up soon... in bed." When talking about the performance of game streaming services you need a similar qualifier at the end... "for me". "<x> streaming services performs better than <y>.... for me"
That's because experiences with the various streaming services can't be generalized so easily. GeForce now is an absolutely miserable experience... for me. However, Stadia is fantastic... for me.
The "for me" caveat applies to some of GP's statements, but not all. In particular, leveraging game existing libraries and improved approachability are true for everyone.
That being said, it does feel that GeForce is having a hard time keeping games on their platform. Anecdotically, ever since they launched the paid service, there's been lots of games pulled from their platform, which is a real shame.
They also don't have a transparent way of discovering new games on their platform which is a huge issue.
That being said, it does feel that GeForce is having a hard time keeping games on their platform. Anecdotically, ever since they launched the paid service, there's been lots of games pulled from their platform, which is a real shame.
They also don't have a transparent way of discovering new games on their platform which is a huge issue.
I don't want to be pedantic, but leveraging existing game libraries doesn't really matter to people who don't have existing game libraries (or existing game libraries that overlap with the games on the service). It seems like a "for me" qualifier should apply there when talking about how important that aspect is to users for a new service.
GeForce now is a pretty poor user experience compared with Stadia, IMHO - it is definitely not universally more approachable at all. And only PC gamers with existing steam libraries have existing content to play on GF Now. But the thing is... I'm not likely to already own a game in steam, that I can't play on my own hardware. So the fact that my existing library is available to play, isn't much of a draw, in and of itself. I keep looking for excuses to play one of my games on GF now, but I keep finding I have no reason to prefer it over my PC.
I'm both bullish and bearish on cloud gaming, if that makes sense. I have Stadia, and the tech is really nice, but as pointed out, there are no games. Further, you have to buy/rebuy all your games just for Stadia, which may not exist soon(ish).
Then there's Geforce Now. Their system is simply awesome, with similar tech but two key advantages. First, you can use any controller, which is a big win. But biggest of all, most of the games are just via Steam. So buy it once, play on PC or ShieldTV, your choice. This was, as it turns out, too good to be true. In the last month, at least two huge publishers pulled out, essentially disabling the ability to play a purchased Steam game via Geforce Now. Now their fate is looking questionable as well.
One month ago, I would have said Geforce Now is absolutely the way to go. Today, I'd tell anyone curious just to wait and see what happens this year.
Then there's Geforce Now. Their system is simply awesome, with similar tech but two key advantages. First, you can use any controller, which is a big win. But biggest of all, most of the games are just via Steam. So buy it once, play on PC or ShieldTV, your choice. This was, as it turns out, too good to be true. In the last month, at least two huge publishers pulled out, essentially disabling the ability to play a purchased Steam game via Geforce Now. Now their fate is looking questionable as well.
One month ago, I would have said Geforce Now is absolutely the way to go. Today, I'd tell anyone curious just to wait and see what happens this year.
> Then there's Geforce Now. Their system is simply awesome, with similar tech but two key advantages. First, you can use any controller, which is a big win.
You can use "any" controller on Stadia too (I'm assuming by any you meant the popular consoles controller): https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9578631?hl=en
There's a common misconception that because Stadia has its own controller and because playing Stadia through Chromecast requires that controller (because Chromecast has no Bluetooth so the only way to connect would be something like a wifi controller like the Stadia Controller) that you cannot use other controllers to play Stadia, that's incorrect.
You can use "any" controller on Stadia too (I'm assuming by any you meant the popular consoles controller): https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9578631?hl=en
There's a common misconception that because Stadia has its own controller and because playing Stadia through Chromecast requires that controller (because Chromecast has no Bluetooth so the only way to connect would be something like a wifi controller like the Stadia Controller) that you cannot use other controllers to play Stadia, that's incorrect.
Steam Controllers support both WiFi and Bluetooth connections, and yet Stadia does not support them
Is that possible? Presumably Valve controls the firmware on those devices.
As Microsoft control the firmware on the Xbox controller, and Sony the dualshock.
Wifi controller is a bit of a dead concept, so I would understand not supporting that, but the bluetooth functionality of steam controllers works just like any other bluetooth controller by exposing a HID to the host.
Wifi controller is a bit of a dead concept, so I would understand not supporting that, but the bluetooth functionality of steam controllers works just like any other bluetooth controller by exposing a HID to the host.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm a stay at home, couch player. So the only method of playing for me is via the Chromecast, which only supports the Stadia controller. The controller is decent, but the battery life is not up to snuff with the Nvidia or Xbone ones.
Give it 5 years and xbox and playstation will have their equivalent cloud offerings, but far more refined and with their expansive and ever growing catalogs. The players in the market now are doomed, but at least it can be assured the industry giants pick up the pieces from when google inevitably cancels this project and make a better product like they tend to do.
Playstation already has it and they've been operating it for many years.
I'm putting 5 years on when it overtakes buying the console in market share.
It will never overtake having a local device which you can play games on, and people that think so are delusional or are trying to sell you something on subscription.
There will be people streaming the games they are playing, there will be people playing streaming games, but it won't ever overtake playing on a local device. (I include handheld consoles, phones, consoles, PCs in this).
There will be people streaming the games they are playing, there will be people playing streaming games, but it won't ever overtake playing on a local device. (I include handheld consoles, phones, consoles, PCs in this).
As others have said these brands already have offerings. The difference is they're not pushing it hard since they know there's still work to be done.
MS also have some cloud gaming solution right now.
As a counter point to GeForce now and cloud gaming in general. I splurged on a shield tv 2 (maybe 3?) years ago and it was a configuration nightmare, especially to play your own games with. Getting controllers to do the right thing was horrendous, especially when you have young kids waiting for you to finish setting it up.
Definitely planning to be a late (real late) adopter of this tech in the future.
The Shield gathers dust while the Switch sees a ton of action.
Definitely planning to be a late (real late) adopter of this tech in the future.
The Shield gathers dust while the Switch sees a ton of action.
GeForce Now didn't exist 2 or 3 years ago, so perhaps you mixed it up with the home streaming solution?
GeForce Now works fine with Xbox controllers with no configuration needed. IIRC it also requires no configuration to work with Shield TV's controller.
GeForce Now works fine with Xbox controllers with no configuration needed. IIRC it also requires no configuration to work with Shield TV's controller.
I checked my receipts (email, easy to find). I purchased the ShieldTV in December of 2016. So just over 3 years ago. GeForce Now launched in October of 2015, but maybe just for Shield TV owners? Apparently they did a relaunch in 2020... not sure what that means. Better I guess?
You're both right, kinda. Geforce Now was in a ..closed-ish beta (you could get in, but they made it seem exclusive) for years. I honestly don't remember if it was called that when it launched. The polished product is what recently 'launched', and configuration is super simple. In fact, it was the xbox controller's instructions I had to turn to to figure out how to put it in bluetooth detection mode.
I picked up my first ever games console this year, and got upsold a few months of Microsoft's Game Pass with it, and it's gold: Netflix for gaming, across two of the major platforms (Windows and Xbox). Much like Netflix there's more stuff there than I know what to do with; from my perspective, it makes it harder to see what the value of Stadia is, exactly. Especially when an Xbox One S is about the price of the Stadia starter package these days, and I can stream games from Windows or an Xbox as well.
n=1, but my video card got stuck at 405MHz last week, and I've been using Geforce Now to play World of Tanks while I wait for the replacement to arrive. The performance is shockingly good. The latency just hasn't been an issue, which is something I am genuinely surprised by.
The great thing about GeForce Now is that it's a great proof of value. I don't know whether it will succeed because the politics of it have to make sense. But the tech is there. On wifi it is 95% of the time good, with 5% stutter, which sucks. On ethernet the reviews are that it's perfect, I haven't tried it yet, but the reviews are great.
Unfortunately the library is not great yet. Not bad either, but I'm missing some favs. Plus while most people play a few popular titles, most people also have an obscure title only they play. And you can't run those, which keeps me going back to wanting to run my own hardware.
Unfortunately the library is not great yet. Not bad either, but I'm missing some favs. Plus while most people play a few popular titles, most people also have an obscure title only they play. And you can't run those, which keeps me going back to wanting to run my own hardware.
> In the last month, at least two huge publishers pulled out, essentially disabling the ability to play a purchased Steam game via Geforce Now.
Do we know why they did that?
Do we know why they did that?
People speculate 'the money', and I have to agree. This isn't a tech problem, as in, it was working last month, and gone this month. Basically, what incentive is there to let people play what they already own, when you can charge them for their 10th copy of Skyrim for Geforce. To name and shame, Bethesda and Activision Blizzard. Ubisoft is pretty nearly keeping it alive at this point.
According to one of the authors of The Long Dark, which has also been pulled, it's because NVidia didn't bother asking, they just... put it online (source: https://twitter.com/RaphLife/status/1234181315840229376). Apparently they offered a graphics card by way of compensation, so...
Do you disagree? Why do they need permission? You own the game on Steam, or buy it on Steam, and they just give you a VM to play it on. I don't need their permission to get a new computer, do I?
I'm not invested one way or another, and I certainly don't know what the legal position is. It does, however, suggest that Nvidia are rather vulnerable to any one of Microsoft, Steam, or game dev/publishers putting them under the microscope.
GeForce now has too much friction to launch a game right now. It has to spawn this weird stripped down windows shell, where you then have to log in to steam (my steam password is cumbersome to type, because I use strong passwords and a password manager, and copy/paste doesn't seem to work between my desktop and the vm), and then you have to launch your game. This whole process takes about 5 minutes.
At least via shield tv, typing is the absolute worst, I agree. However, I've only had to log in to steam once, now it just does it behind the scenes. It's actually kinda hacky, you can see it launch Steam, launch the window, then maximize. That said, it only takes about 5 seconds to launch a game this way.
Let's say I'm a casual gamers, without a console or a gaming PC and I briefly heard of Stadia. I imagine this is their target audience.
I went to stadia.google.com and there's no catalog with the available games on the platform. There's nothing that show me, with trailers, videos, what's on there and why I should buy this. Remember, I am a casual gamers, so I don't know much about what is out there in terms of games.
What I see is some images of games that tells me nothing, a link to buy the service and links to both App stores. That's it.
Basically, this is Google assuming, once again, that because they're Google, that people would be tripping over themselves to sign up for this. Total lack of empathy.
I ended up closing the tab.
I went to stadia.google.com and there's no catalog with the available games on the platform. There's nothing that show me, with trailers, videos, what's on there and why I should buy this. Remember, I am a casual gamers, so I don't know much about what is out there in terms of games.
What I see is some images of games that tells me nothing, a link to buy the service and links to both App stores. That's it.
Basically, this is Google assuming, once again, that because they're Google, that people would be tripping over themselves to sign up for this. Total lack of empathy.
I ended up closing the tab.
I visited the page. Pathetic. I think someone did that page in an hour?
Unless it's a game I really, really want to play right NOW, I wishlist it and wait for deep discounts, then purchase. This leaves me with a large back catalog of games I haven't played yet, from which I choose when I'm done with one game and want to choose another.
Given the frequent discount sales model popularized by Steam (and maybe Humble Bundle was first to that?) I think a lot of avid gamers are in a similar position.
As a result, game streaming services that doesn't let me bring my own games is a complete non-starter for me. Especially for a sales model like Stadia where I really don't own it. GoG is an excellent storefront to safeguard your library with DRM free games and archiveable installers. Even Steam has made sounds about finding a way to let you keep your library if they were ever to go under. But past failures like Onlive have left gamers bereft of purchases. I think I lost some games when Direct2Drive had some issues or transfer of ownership years ago.
If Google really wants to make a viable product, they should be looking at integrating Stadia streaming tech into compute instances that let me install Steam or any other storefront or stand alone game.
If you're looking for such a service, you could do worse than Shadow or Paperspace. I demoed GeForce Now and liked it better, but they're also running into some trouble over not firming up publisher agreements, so I'd wait for the dust to settle there in the next months.
Given the frequent discount sales model popularized by Steam (and maybe Humble Bundle was first to that?) I think a lot of avid gamers are in a similar position.
As a result, game streaming services that doesn't let me bring my own games is a complete non-starter for me. Especially for a sales model like Stadia where I really don't own it. GoG is an excellent storefront to safeguard your library with DRM free games and archiveable installers. Even Steam has made sounds about finding a way to let you keep your library if they were ever to go under. But past failures like Onlive have left gamers bereft of purchases. I think I lost some games when Direct2Drive had some issues or transfer of ownership years ago.
If Google really wants to make a viable product, they should be looking at integrating Stadia streaming tech into compute instances that let me install Steam or any other storefront or stand alone game.
If you're looking for such a service, you could do worse than Shadow or Paperspace. I demoed GeForce Now and liked it better, but they're also running into some trouble over not firming up publisher agreements, so I'd wait for the dust to settle there in the next months.
The frequent discount model is popular in most retail now. Many people don't shop for clothing unless it is on sale because they have been trained that it will be on sale soon enough.
Very true. I know I can get work casual clothes from the usual shops if I wait a few weeks at a 30-40% discount.
It sounds like you might be more into a Netflix style model, which has a large (possibly rotating) back catalogue to catch up on everything you missed. I don't think anyone is trying to do that, but it's also the only model I'd possibly be willing to pay.
I might be willing to pay a monthly cost instead of buying games individually if the catalog was comprehensive. The problem I've seen with services like PS Now is that I'm not interested in many games, and there's always a bunch of good ones missing. I'd probably be happy with a service that had all games but you picked like 3 or 4 a month you were going to play and then waited til next month for more pics.
Xbox Game Pass is pretty similar to that (and also on PC), minus the whole streaming thing of course. I almost signed up for the trial but the last thing I need right now is more games.
This article seems misguided.
It's assuming Stadia is "floundering" because it doesn't have a ton of indie titles, assuming those are "critical" for success.
But are they? The article is clear that Google is working with "EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft, 2K Games, and Rockstar Games".
Google is obviously consciously choosing a product strategy of starting with major publishers rather than indie ones.
Now I don't personally know if that's the right strategy. But it's clearly the strategy Google is pursuing, so they should be judged on whether that's working.
Judging solely on the presence of indie titles just seems weird.
It's assuming Stadia is "floundering" because it doesn't have a ton of indie titles, assuming those are "critical" for success.
But are they? The article is clear that Google is working with "EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft, 2K Games, and Rockstar Games".
Google is obviously consciously choosing a product strategy of starting with major publishers rather than indie ones.
Now I don't personally know if that's the right strategy. But it's clearly the strategy Google is pursuing, so they should be judged on whether that's working.
Judging solely on the presence of indie titles just seems weird.
I paid for the Founders Edition, eagerly awaited its release, played a couple games for a few hours and haven't touched it since.
I want to play games like I watch Netflix, free with lots of variety. Indie game makers would keep me coming back for no other reason than I want to try new things regularly and I have zero interest in paying $60 for titles I've already played or had no interest in in the first place.
Dr. Kate Compton articulates what I want well in this twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/GalaxyKate/status/1197227916158996481
I want to play games like I watch Netflix, free with lots of variety. Indie game makers would keep me coming back for no other reason than I want to try new things regularly and I have zero interest in paying $60 for titles I've already played or had no interest in in the first place.
Dr. Kate Compton articulates what I want well in this twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/GalaxyKate/status/1197227916158996481
Twitter won’t load for me right now, but it sounds like you want Apple Arcade.
Twitter will load differently for me depending upon referrer; try reloading by selecting url and hitting enter to make it a direct thing.
I'd totally try that if it didn't try to force me to upgrade my OS. Looks interesting though!
Speaking for myself as someone who received Stadia for Christmas, I've enjoyed it quite a bit and I've really only played one game so far, Red Dead 2. The online multiplayer is snappy; while graphic quality could be better, it is not something I'm writing angry letters about.
Eventually they will need to release more games to keep me coming back, but I agree that the thrust of the article is not especially convincing.
Indie developers are not the de facto bellwethers for a platform's success; you have to make that case as a game journalist. Not sure that happened here.
Eventually they will need to release more games to keep me coming back, but I agree that the thrust of the article is not especially convincing.
Indie developers are not the de facto bellwethers for a platform's success; you have to make that case as a game journalist. Not sure that happened here.
Also, considering adapting a game for Stadia takes non-negligible amount of time:
1. Before they released Stadia, they could only work with a small handful of developers without too much getting leaked.
2. Now that it's public, it takes time for all the devs to port their games.
They did announce that there will be 120+ games in 2020, which matches up with my point above. Most of those probably only started porting mid 2019.
Furthermore, if compared to consoles, and not decades of PC history, Stadia does have a reasonable number of games at "launch", though not enough exclusives.
1. Before they released Stadia, they could only work with a small handful of developers without too much getting leaked.
2. Now that it's public, it takes time for all the devs to port their games.
They did announce that there will be 120+ games in 2020, which matches up with my point above. Most of those probably only started porting mid 2019.
Furthermore, if compared to consoles, and not decades of PC history, Stadia does have a reasonable number of games at "launch", though not enough exclusives.
Honestly, this reminds me of almost every game launch on consoles. They don't start off with 100 games. They start out with some core games that don't show off the system's full capabilities and then over time the library gets big.
The big games will likely be anywhere successful - as the article notes, they're the blockbuster films that will be shown everywhere. The smaller games, like Untitled Goose Game or Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, are what can be the differentiator for whether people use your storefront or your competitor.
>It's assuming Stadia is "floundering" because it doesn't have a ton of indie titles, assuming those are "critical" for success.
This is ironic because it seems like replies to every new game release on Twitter bemoan Google for having nothing but indie titles on Stadia.
This is ironic because it seems like replies to every new game release on Twitter bemoan Google for having nothing but indie titles on Stadia.
"This concern — that Google might just give up on Stadia at some point and kill the service, as it has done with so many other services over the years — was repeatedly brought up, unprompted, by every person we spoke with for this piece."
There it is, right there. Nobody takes Google seriously on any new initiative outside their core wheelhouse. We've all been burned too many times.
There it is, right there. Nobody takes Google seriously on any new initiative outside their core wheelhouse. We've all been burned too many times.
I find this point so overplayed lately.
Can someone here name "so many other (paid) services" that Google has killed? And even for free ones, how many major services can you name of the scale of Stadia? G+ is really the only one, and maybe Allo. Hangouts is still not killed though its future is uncertain, GPM is apparently being migrated and Inbox was mostly a UI over Gmail.
Other than those, almost every other item in those cemetery site is a trivial side project, not even close to being comparable to Stadia.
Can someone here name "so many other (paid) services" that Google has killed? And even for free ones, how many major services can you name of the scale of Stadia? G+ is really the only one, and maybe Allo. Hangouts is still not killed though its future is uncertain, GPM is apparently being migrated and Inbox was mostly a UI over Gmail.
Other than those, almost every other item in those cemetery site is a trivial side project, not even close to being comparable to Stadia.
The thing is, it doesn’t really matter if it’s overplayed: this is one of those times when perception is reality. If people avoid new Google products because they‘re afraid of it getting shut down— and according to the article that definitely seems to be happening here—then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and a positive feedback cycle on top of that.
Currently, some features on our site still broken from fusion tables being shut down. Relatively easy to move to other solutions in the grand scheme of things of course, and we were warned well (months) ahead of time, and yet somehow another release passes without it being fixed..
Out of interest, what is the alternative to Hangouts from Google? I have Duo but I don't want to video call all the time. I would like to IM and send pictures (without WhatsApp).
Does Google have an alternative or are they just ditching it for no purpose?
Does Google have an alternative or are they just ditching it for no purpose?
It's still not clear, but I doubt they will fully ditch it. My understanding is that Hangout Chat is going to replace it, but the current iteration is very enterprise centric (feels like Slack). The fact that they still haven't killed Hangout makes me think that they will adapt Chat to be closer to the old Hangout and swap the two.
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The article does not support the title. The facts also do not support the article.
Stadia launched with 3 indie games, one of them exclusive. In just the last week they added 3 more indie-ish games (Spitlings and 2 titles from SteamWorld). They also announced at least 4 more indie-ish titles to land soon (Lost Words, 2 more SteamWorld titles, and Stacks On Stacks). So how can one claim that indie developers are not porting games to Stadia? At least some clearly do.
Speaking of Business Insider - in my personal opinion, they are a click factory. They'll write anything that drives clicks, just look at their landing page. "Stadia is DoA" drives clicks and Business Insider wrote quite a few articles to that extent. They know how to run business.
Speaking of this specific article: if devs and 'executives' believe Google is not serious about Stadia, why no-one agreed to speak on record? Is it possible that that these contacts actually think there is a path forward for Stadia and they don't want to burn bridges? Or maybe these industry contacts are imaginary?
Disclaimer: happy Stadia user, playing indie games on it and confused when someone says that indies are not porting games to Stadia.
Stadia launched with 3 indie games, one of them exclusive. In just the last week they added 3 more indie-ish games (Spitlings and 2 titles from SteamWorld). They also announced at least 4 more indie-ish titles to land soon (Lost Words, 2 more SteamWorld titles, and Stacks On Stacks). So how can one claim that indie developers are not porting games to Stadia? At least some clearly do.
Speaking of Business Insider - in my personal opinion, they are a click factory. They'll write anything that drives clicks, just look at their landing page. "Stadia is DoA" drives clicks and Business Insider wrote quite a few articles to that extent. They know how to run business.
Speaking of this specific article: if devs and 'executives' believe Google is not serious about Stadia, why no-one agreed to speak on record? Is it possible that that these contacts actually think there is a path forward for Stadia and they don't want to burn bridges? Or maybe these industry contacts are imaginary?
Disclaimer: happy Stadia user, playing indie games on it and confused when someone says that indies are not porting games to Stadia.
> if devs and 'executives' believe Google is not serious about Stadia, why no-one agreed to speak on record? Is it possible that that these contacts actually think there is a path forward for Stadia and they don't want to burn bridges?
They simply don't want to burn bridges with Google. There is nothing to win by doing so. Everyone knows Google has enough money to throw it against their problems if they decide to do so.
They simply don't want to burn bridges with Google. There is nothing to win by doing so. Everyone knows Google has enough money to throw it against their problems if they decide to do so.
3 indie games is not exactly a lot. 3 indie games is what's launched on Steam any given 10 minutes. If you mean huge indie games, Steam gets about one or more of those a day.
And it seems like the Steamworld developer is quite serious about porting games to Stadia, since 4 games out of the 10 you mentioned are all related to Steamworld in some way. That doesn't strike me as a healthy indie market if it's so heavily sustained by one developer.
And announcing 4 more indie titles coming soon doesn't leave me with any confidence. It's not much.
And it seems like the Steamworld developer is quite serious about porting games to Stadia, since 4 games out of the 10 you mentioned are all related to Steamworld in some way. That doesn't strike me as a healthy indie market if it's so heavily sustained by one developer.
And announcing 4 more indie titles coming soon doesn't leave me with any confidence. It's not much.
I agree that the number of games compared to established platforms is small.
But what can you expect? This is a new entrant, all the new platforms faced similar issues. Some overcome it, some didn't, we'll see how it goes here. For what I know, Google already invested a lot and has deep pockets.
But what can you expect? This is a new entrant, all the new platforms faced similar issues. Some overcome it, some didn't, we'll see how it goes here. For what I know, Google already invested a lot and has deep pockets.
The facts seem to indicate that it's floundering if nearly half of its indie titles are from one minor developer. Indie devs often readily hop on new platforms (given that development isn't unreasonably difficult) since it's a wide open market and they have a fresh chance to get in before it's too crowded.
Nobody is eager to put anything on Stadia. As an indie developer myself, Stadia would at best be an afterthought long after I've comfortably released my games elsewhere. It doesn't seem worth the time investment.
Nobody is eager to put anything on Stadia. As an indie developer myself, Stadia would at best be an afterthought long after I've comfortably released my games elsewhere. It doesn't seem worth the time investment.
I just don't see the market for this. Powerful computers are becoming cheaper and cheaper; the PC game market is continuing to expand.
I don't see the comparison to other cloud media services like Netflix or Hulu- on Stadia, you have to pay for the service AND the individual items, instead of just the service. As far as I know, there isn't any other business like this. I don't think this is appealing to consumers.
I don't see the comparison to other cloud media services like Netflix or Hulu- on Stadia, you have to pay for the service AND the individual items, instead of just the service. As far as I know, there isn't any other business like this. I don't think this is appealing to consumers.
Some of the most exciting potentials for cloud streaming for me are some of the things they've toted as not possible on consumer hardware.
Most of these are just related to scale (like 1,000-person Battle Royales, 500-car races, MMOs that don't have to shard players in the same area into separate "worlds", etc), but there's other features that'd be exciting to see when games have effectively unlimited resources (instead of having to worry about what's available on each consumer's PC); Google's got a lot of resources in NLP and language recognition/generation they could apply to NPC dialogues, massive amounts of resources could make enemy/npc AI way more impressive than what you'd see on local hardware (I'd love to play against DeepMind's Dota 2 bots!), or even something as mundane as Maps-like navigation as a first-party feature to help you navigate through game worlds.
I'm less excited about some of the streaming-based features they've advertised (streamers being able to share save-states with viewers that viewers can click to start playing from, viewers being able to instantly jump in and play live with streamers, being easier to stream at 4K while also playing in 4K, etc), but I guess those are probably appealing to some people also.
Most of these are just related to scale (like 1,000-person Battle Royales, 500-car races, MMOs that don't have to shard players in the same area into separate "worlds", etc), but there's other features that'd be exciting to see when games have effectively unlimited resources (instead of having to worry about what's available on each consumer's PC); Google's got a lot of resources in NLP and language recognition/generation they could apply to NPC dialogues, massive amounts of resources could make enemy/npc AI way more impressive than what you'd see on local hardware (I'd love to play against DeepMind's Dota 2 bots!), or even something as mundane as Maps-like navigation as a first-party feature to help you navigate through game worlds.
I'm less excited about some of the streaming-based features they've advertised (streamers being able to share save-states with viewers that viewers can click to start playing from, viewers being able to instantly jump in and play live with streamers, being easier to stream at 4K while also playing in 4K, etc), but I guess those are probably appealing to some people also.
Things that aren't possible on consumer hardware are implausible to be financially viable as an on demand service.
Even for Google, it will never affordable to spin up giant clusters of servers for one person playing a video game.
The basic premise of Stadia being able to match and surpass a high end desktop gaming machine makes no sense. The cloud isn't magic, and it takes people thinking it is magic to buy the pitch. Stadia reminds me of SimCity 2013 promising it had to be online based because of all the magic cloud power they needed to make it work, which was almost immediately proven to be utter bullshit.
There's no way to offer the power of a $1,000 GPU without your own $1,000 GPU, and their promise of 4k at 60 FPS takes a very serious amount of specialized gaming hardware.
Even for Google, it will never affordable to spin up giant clusters of servers for one person playing a video game.
The basic premise of Stadia being able to match and surpass a high end desktop gaming machine makes no sense. The cloud isn't magic, and it takes people thinking it is magic to buy the pitch. Stadia reminds me of SimCity 2013 promising it had to be online based because of all the magic cloud power they needed to make it work, which was almost immediately proven to be utter bullshit.
There's no way to offer the power of a $1,000 GPU without your own $1,000 GPU, and their promise of 4k at 60 FPS takes a very serious amount of specialized gaming hardware.
>There's no way to offer the power of a $1,000 GPU without your own $1,000 GPU
I think the whole idea of economics at scale (and much of cloud computing) is predicated on the idea that users want to use that $1,000 GPU without having to pay $1,000 to own it, and that companies can sell access to many users per $1,000 GPU to recoup the costs of that GPU, both over time (as the initial cost gets amortized over recurring subscription/usage revenues) and horizontally (selling access to many users who timeshare that GPU, maximizing its use compared to owning one you'd only use N hours per day).
Scale that up to thousands of GPUs making a profit from hundreds of thousands of users each accessing those resources at a cost cheaper than what it'd take for them to purchase those resources for themselves and you've got the magic of the "cloud".
tl;dr Users can pay <$1,000 for access to a $1,000 GPU and companies can afford to do so because the number of users multiplied by what they're paying exceeds the cost and upkeep of that GPU. Everyone* wins.
I think the whole idea of economics at scale (and much of cloud computing) is predicated on the idea that users want to use that $1,000 GPU without having to pay $1,000 to own it, and that companies can sell access to many users per $1,000 GPU to recoup the costs of that GPU, both over time (as the initial cost gets amortized over recurring subscription/usage revenues) and horizontally (selling access to many users who timeshare that GPU, maximizing its use compared to owning one you'd only use N hours per day).
Scale that up to thousands of GPUs making a profit from hundreds of thousands of users each accessing those resources at a cost cheaper than what it'd take for them to purchase those resources for themselves and you've got the magic of the "cloud".
tl;dr Users can pay <$1,000 for access to a $1,000 GPU and companies can afford to do so because the number of users multiplied by what they're paying exceeds the cost and upkeep of that GPU. Everyone* wins.
but you can rent a $1000 GPU for $100 per month and make a profit of $200 per year
> Google's got a lot of resources in NLP and language recognition/generation they could apply to NPC dialogues, massive amounts of resources could make enemy/npc AI way more impressive than what you'd see on local hardware
Even if Google could develop this stuff at scale and in the cloud. Google isn't writing the games, game developers are. All of these resources you are talking about require large amounts of developer time on a unique set of resources which are in theory not available on other platforms. If Google wanted to deliver this sort of unique feature into their games, they would have to bankroll it similar to the way Microsoft bankrolled a lot of the Kinect special titles.
Even if Google could develop this stuff at scale and in the cloud. Google isn't writing the games, game developers are. All of these resources you are talking about require large amounts of developer time on a unique set of resources which are in theory not available on other platforms. If Google wanted to deliver this sort of unique feature into their games, they would have to bankroll it similar to the way Microsoft bankrolled a lot of the Kinect special titles.
This is an interestingly timely comment, as GRID released on Stadia today sporting an exclusive 40-person race mode (up from the standard 16-person multiplayer on other platforms) that the developer says "just isn’t possible with other hardware".
I think they're just scratching the surface of what's possible, and I'm excited to see how other games take advantage of the new form factor Stadia offers as time goes on.
Every console has its pros and cons, and something "new" that a new console/platform can provide can definitely be appealing to some developers looking to differentiate themselves or their games from what we've come to expect as normal (or even possible, in many cases).
I think they're just scratching the surface of what's possible, and I'm excited to see how other games take advantage of the new form factor Stadia offers as time goes on.
Every console has its pros and cons, and something "new" that a new console/platform can provide can definitely be appealing to some developers looking to differentiate themselves or their games from what we've come to expect as normal (or even possible, in many cases).
The most obvious market is someone who wants to play a game they've been anticipating for awhile but doesn't want to build a PC just for it.
Another is a consumer who has been away from gaming for awhile but wants to get back in. In the past, they would have to research and build a new PC. With Stadia, you can be gaming within 10 minutes.
Another is a consumer who has been away from gaming for awhile but wants to get back in. In the past, they would have to research and build a new PC. With Stadia, you can be gaming within 10 minutes.
Google is now starting to feel the economic impact of being a known "mercurial company" that cannot be trusted with any long term strategic partnerships. see https://gcemetery.co
As a customer, why would I "buy" a game that I will never own, on a service that is likely to close on a whim. As a game developer why would I invest time and effort supporting a new platform from a company without a proven track record in the game industry.
This will severely limit their impact on the industry, and the executives have nobody to blame but themselves for the lack of trust.
As a customer, why would I "buy" a game that I will never own, on a service that is likely to close on a whim. As a game developer why would I invest time and effort supporting a new platform from a company without a proven track record in the game industry.
This will severely limit their impact on the industry, and the executives have nobody to blame but themselves for the lack of trust.
I’m glad to see that Google is finally paying for their actions by having market forces reject them for retreating so quickly. Anything they try can’t be just a toe-dip now. They need to actually invest heavily otherwise no one will trust them. Good. They have fucked over way too many developers by dangling a promise and then cutting support quickly.
Shouldn't a potential user of this service just expect it to be unceremoniously discontinued, like so many other Google products?
Yep, but then you can switch to xbox cloud in a couple years and it will probably be excellent with a huge catalog of current and legacy titles and supported until the end of time, or whenever you can no longer afford $10 a month.
yep, i wouldn't want to buy the product, let alone spend effort developing content for it
Google is an engineer-driven company. They're great at building solutions, but terrible at packaging them up as products. Making them desirable, and easy to understand, and just having any kind of unifying vision at all. Nobody who understands this fact is the least bit shocked about how Stadia is turning out.
I agree with this, but only for their consumer products. I gave up on the Google Home and went back to Alexa. It was like they just don’t try to use their own products themselves, and once they tick the box of releasing, improvements seem to be nonexistent.
Admittedly, most of my issues were because I have a GSuite account, but when it can’t read my own calendar or set a reminder, you realise they just don’t care. Alexa can read my GSuite calendar just fine.
I always approach Google products with caution.
Admittedly, most of my issues were because I have a GSuite account, but when it can’t read my own calendar or set a reminder, you realise they just don’t care. Alexa can read my GSuite calendar just fine.
I always approach Google products with caution.
Could it be possible that employees designing the google home ecosystem can't actually afford homes in the bay area? If everyone is renting, then they likely have to make do, and just imagine what owning a home might be like.
The least they could do is set up a test lab on campus and have testers spend time living in it. Google isn’t the type of company to make that sort of investment in product quality. They don’t seem to believe in manual processes even when they’re superior to automated processes. So it doesn’t surprise me they have difficulty delivering a high quality home automation suite.
What does owning a home have to do with the comment above? Calendar integration has nothing to do with whether you pay a mortgage or rent.
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Right, I finally got what you were referring to. So I think you're considering Google Home as in home automation. Maybe my frustration is actually the Google Assistant which I happened to use through a Google Home device.
Either way, the experience for consumers is shockingly bad the moment you have an experience that is outside of their simplified 'marketing' message.
Either way, the experience for consumers is shockingly bad the moment you have an experience that is outside of their simplified 'marketing' message.
This is a ridiculous comment. They make products people enjoy and use every day: Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Chrome, Google Photos. Billions of people who aren't technically savvy use the products.
Google makes some bad products too. Stadia happens to be one of them imo.
Google makes some bad products too. Stadia happens to be one of them imo.
None of the products are original idea. They are all better clones of somebody else's product.
So is everything.
It's interesting to me how a company like Google can still do things so half-assedly. You'd kind of expect with their resources, they'd to flirt with an idea, then if they commit, to do it fully. Like, wildly cheap, subsidized gaming solution until they own the market and then turn up the price.
The only answer I can come up with is, "this _is_ their version of flirting with an idea." In which case I think the problem is nobody else realises that given the scale and price tag.
The only answer I can come up with is, "this _is_ their version of flirting with an idea." In which case I think the problem is nobody else realises that given the scale and price tag.
Useful to me here is John Cutler's notion of a "feature factory": https://cutle.fish/blog/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-...
Basically, it's where an executive idea flows through an assembly line that involves marketing, design, product, and eventually software developers. There's no real feedback loop with users; everybody just builds the executive vision for a long time until launch. And then goes on building in a top-down, do-whatever-the-boss-says way.
A lot of Google's failures to me feel like some high-level executive getting high on their own vision and/or their desire to conquer a particular market. Which might work if they had the experience, the humility, or the discipline to focus on really serving a specific audience.
Basically, it's where an executive idea flows through an assembly line that involves marketing, design, product, and eventually software developers. There's no real feedback loop with users; everybody just builds the executive vision for a long time until launch. And then goes on building in a top-down, do-whatever-the-boss-says way.
A lot of Google's failures to me feel like some high-level executive getting high on their own vision and/or their desire to conquer a particular market. Which might work if they had the experience, the humility, or the discipline to focus on really serving a specific audience.
Maybe this is silly given Google's vast resources, but I do worry about the future of a company that seems to consistently fall short when it comes to marketing and product management.
Google probably still has a lot of the best engineering talent in the world, but without coherent product strategy and marketing what good does it do? When was the last time Google made a big bet that achieved the same level of success as their earlier products? Does Google's inability to diversify its revenue stream make it more vulnerable to disruption than say, Amazon, in the long run?
Google probably still has a lot of the best engineering talent in the world, but without coherent product strategy and marketing what good does it do? When was the last time Google made a big bet that achieved the same level of success as their earlier products? Does Google's inability to diversify its revenue stream make it more vulnerable to disruption than say, Amazon, in the long run?
> Does Google's inability to diversify its revenue stream make it more vulnerable to disruption than say, Amazon, in the long run?
Yes. If ads went away, Google would collapse. Google's core search experience is not that good any more, though it's still the best in town; you have to wonder what would happen if Amazon or Facebook decided to actually go after search in a serious way.
Yes. If ads went away, Google would collapse. Google's core search experience is not that good any more, though it's still the best in town; you have to wonder what would happen if Amazon or Facebook decided to actually go after search in a serious way.
They do. It is deeply irritating to Amazon that people mostly search Amazon's product catalogue via Google, and only actually navigate to an Amazon controlled page when they go specifically to the product page. Amazon has thrown tremendous resources into building a search experience over their own databases and it still sucks compared to the one Google produced by scraping their website.
I'm sure some part of Amazon must be deeply irritated, just as some part of Google must be deeply irritated that so many people buying products after searching on Google go to Amazon rather than through Google Shopping. But both Amazon Search and Google Shopping suck badly enough that I struggle to believe they are high priorities for their respective companies, whether that's based on an objective view of their own business or because (tacitly or explicitly) they've decided to avoid fighting each other directly.
The Amazon search experience could be trivially improved to be made better than Google search for me by doing two simple things:
1. No ads, sponsored listings, etc. 2. Let me filter out listings that aren't sold/shipped by Amazon.
1. No ads, sponsored listings, etc. 2. Let me filter out listings that aren't sold/shipped by Amazon.
It's my impression that Google has been declining since Eric Schmidt left the CEO post. That's probably wrong in a lot of ways, they're making a lot of money and have grown a lot since then, but that's the closest I can think of when trying to find a particular point in time when I as a non investor feel they lost someething. I can't think of a single interesting thing Google has done with Sundar Pichai as CEO, but I guess he's doing something right considering his career. And as long as Google's got that sweet ad money there's really no point in trying to change anything.
I suspect that Google does things to get data. Google Fiber, Google+, Google Stadia, etc. Google is so big that it needs an institutional understanding of adjacent businesses (Comcast, Facebook, the games industry). And how better to gain an understanding than by competing in that space for awhile?
What Google needs is to protect its Ads business (Fiber was a shot across the bow of ISPs, letting consumers know that better was possible) and expand into other similarly-sized markets. Who knows what the future may bring, perhaps targeted digital advertising won't be raking in buckets of cash in 5 or 10 years? If the fortunes of digital advertising go belly-up, Google isn't going to be replacing it with a grab bag of chat apps, phone plans and smartphones.
What digital markets exist with current or future revenues in the multi-hundreds of billions of dollars? They tried building a social network, and it didn't work. Doubling down would just further commit them to digital advertising as the entire business. What's left? Enterprise software (GSuite), cloud computing (Google Cloud), video games (Stadia). Any one of those could replace a significant shortfall of revenue from digital advertising if Google could get a significant market share. And significant doesn't have to be that large. Cloud computing market revenue is estimated to be over $500B in 2023, 10% market share in cloud computing would bring in almost a third of Google's current revenue. And 2023 video game market revenue is estimated to be above $200B.
What digital markets exist with current or future revenues in the multi-hundreds of billions of dollars? They tried building a social network, and it didn't work. Doubling down would just further commit them to digital advertising as the entire business. What's left? Enterprise software (GSuite), cloud computing (Google Cloud), video games (Stadia). Any one of those could replace a significant shortfall of revenue from digital advertising if Google could get a significant market share. And significant doesn't have to be that large. Cloud computing market revenue is estimated to be over $500B in 2023, 10% market share in cloud computing would bring in almost a third of Google's current revenue. And 2023 video game market revenue is estimated to be above $200B.
For a company of Googles size, a 100 million dollar outlay of resources is flirting with the market.
They can get incredibly polished looking marketing pages, and advertising campaigns without actually committing.
They can get incredibly polished looking marketing pages, and advertising campaigns without actually committing.
> Like, wildly cheap, subsidized gaming solution until they own the market and then turn up the price
They're probably too concerned about antitrust these days to try anything like that.
They're probably too concerned about antitrust these days to try anything like that.
Google has consistently been terrible at large corporate deal making. It's the same reason I have no faith in Google Cloud as a future product. Their tech may be interesting, but they can't court and maintain strong relationships with other large corporations. And Stadia's success will ultimately come down to their ability to make deals with the largest publishers.
Despite its failings, Stadia has few complaints about its killer feature: streaming at decently high FPS. Whether Google pulls it off or not ultimately isn't the question- the question is whether game streaming over the web will be the norm in 10 years, and I think that Stadia's initial rollout has proven the tech out.
I'm rather fond of physical game media. I like the way it looks on a shelf, and how I can always trade it at a local store for something else. I like that I can demo titles via Redbox. I like that I own my hardware and can get some value out of it if I sell it. Downloadable games don't have those qualities, but at least they can (generally) be played offline and still allow for permanent ownership. That said, all of those qualities have essentially vanished with music and video streaming and gaming isn't fundamentally different than those mediums. Look at home stereo systems over the past 50 years, where audiophile quality has given way to convenient delivery almost universally.
Any player in the game streaming business needs to have big metal, fat pipes, and money to burn on acquisition, so it does seem like a somewhat of a natural monopoly.
I'm rather fond of physical game media. I like the way it looks on a shelf, and how I can always trade it at a local store for something else. I like that I can demo titles via Redbox. I like that I own my hardware and can get some value out of it if I sell it. Downloadable games don't have those qualities, but at least they can (generally) be played offline and still allow for permanent ownership. That said, all of those qualities have essentially vanished with music and video streaming and gaming isn't fundamentally different than those mediums. Look at home stereo systems over the past 50 years, where audiophile quality has given way to convenient delivery almost universally.
Any player in the game streaming business needs to have big metal, fat pipes, and money to burn on acquisition, so it does seem like a somewhat of a natural monopoly.
My experience with the technology supporting YouTube TV being so lackluster, I am reluctant to ever consider Stadia. By lackluster I mean buffering on episode load, waiting for the rewind feature to start working.
I bet at least one googler's ambitious push into becoming a director or a VP is succeeding though.
The article throws up two problems: the obvious one is that no-one trusts Google not to lose interest in a year or two and flush everything into the Google Sewer that all sorts of other killer products have been dumped into.
The other, though, is even harder for Google to solve: it's their culture of contempt for creators. Google's most successful products are all founded on the idea that content is worthless, and that whatever Google brings to the party is so valuable that paying in exposure, or the opportunity to participate in surveillance capitalism via advertising, ought to be enough to make you happy.
Search increasingly repackages other people's work, and Google are happy to leverage their monopoly to delist you if you don't like it; AMP ditto. News is wholesale the same story. YouTube spent years turning a blind eye to rampant copyright violation (particularly for music videos) to build itself into a monopoly. Google Scholar, Google Books - almost every Google success story is based on the same formula: take other people's work, repackage it, tell them you'll see them in court if they don't like it, and drop you from search (hell, at one point, Google banned a news outlet for a story about concerns with Google Maps' privacy aspects, if you want to understand how freely they'll use their monopoly).
Here, though, the creators have many outlets competing for their output, and an audience who are well-engaged with Steam, the Windows Store/Xbox, PlayStation Store, and so on. But Google's culture appears to be too arrogant to actually recognise the value of creators.
The other, though, is even harder for Google to solve: it's their culture of contempt for creators. Google's most successful products are all founded on the idea that content is worthless, and that whatever Google brings to the party is so valuable that paying in exposure, or the opportunity to participate in surveillance capitalism via advertising, ought to be enough to make you happy.
Search increasingly repackages other people's work, and Google are happy to leverage their monopoly to delist you if you don't like it; AMP ditto. News is wholesale the same story. YouTube spent years turning a blind eye to rampant copyright violation (particularly for music videos) to build itself into a monopoly. Google Scholar, Google Books - almost every Google success story is based on the same formula: take other people's work, repackage it, tell them you'll see them in court if they don't like it, and drop you from search (hell, at one point, Google banned a news outlet for a story about concerns with Google Maps' privacy aspects, if you want to understand how freely they'll use their monopoly).
Here, though, the creators have many outlets competing for their output, and an audience who are well-engaged with Steam, the Windows Store/Xbox, PlayStation Store, and so on. But Google's culture appears to be too arrogant to actually recognise the value of creators.
"tell them you'll see them in court if they don't like it, and drop you from search"
You tack on "drop you from search" as if it were an afterthought. But the "copyright violation" or "taking other peoples' work" is the process of making it searchable. What logical possibility is there other than doing it or not doing it?
You tack on "drop you from search" as if it were an afterthought. But the "copyright violation" or "taking other peoples' work" is the process of making it searchable. What logical possibility is there other than doing it or not doing it?
I rent a Shadow instance for $35 a month, and play my entire Steam library on a MacBook Air. New games, old games, whatever. It just works, given good broadband and an Ethernet cable.
I think the future of "cloud gaming" looks a lot more like Shadow than Stadia.
I think the future of "cloud gaming" looks a lot more like Shadow than Stadia.
Don't underestimate the importance of marketing. History is full of very successful products that are dogshit compared to competitors but have flashy marketing and celebrity endorsements.
Still an accurate headline if you replace "gaming" with...
- music streaming
- chat
- phone hardware
- ISP
- health
As far as I know, they have two profitable products: ads and G Suite.
- music streaming
- chat
- phone hardware
- ISP
- health
As far as I know, they have two profitable products: ads and G Suite.
And according to many reports, they are losing market share with GSuite...
http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2018/may/30/office-3...
http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2018/may/30/office-3...
> But where are the dozens of indie hits that helped bolster the libraries of Sony's PlayStation 4, Microsoft's Xbox One, and Nintendo's Switch? Where are the games like "Bloodstained," "Shovel Knight," "Dead Cells," and "Untitled Goose Game" — the blockbuster indie games that sell millions of copies and inspire sequels?
I think this points to a somewhat more important problem for Google. As the article points out, to incentivize developers and their studios to do the work to move their games to the Stadia platform, Google would need to offer to them the benefit of a base of dedicated users. If we consider that many prospective users may already be using Steam or home gaming consoles, the question becomes: how does Google attract these users to their platform? In my opinion, as someone who has played games from an early age, the best way to do that would be to either develop a game for the platform themselves (however feasible that may be) or hire a studio to produce a game for the platform with at least a temporary exclusivity deal. I've known many young kids throughout my childhood who were inspired to go out and get a game system simply because there's that one game that can't be played anywhere else. Whether it's Mario on Nintendo, Halo on Microsoft, or Uncharted on Sony, every gaming platform has historically had exclusive games that can't be played anywhere else. Imagine if Google Stadia had secured Fortnite as an exclusive game - Fortnite would probably have not been as successful as it is now, but Stadia may likely have received a serious boost in consumer attention, all things staying the same.
I think this points to a somewhat more important problem for Google. As the article points out, to incentivize developers and their studios to do the work to move their games to the Stadia platform, Google would need to offer to them the benefit of a base of dedicated users. If we consider that many prospective users may already be using Steam or home gaming consoles, the question becomes: how does Google attract these users to their platform? In my opinion, as someone who has played games from an early age, the best way to do that would be to either develop a game for the platform themselves (however feasible that may be) or hire a studio to produce a game for the platform with at least a temporary exclusivity deal. I've known many young kids throughout my childhood who were inspired to go out and get a game system simply because there's that one game that can't be played anywhere else. Whether it's Mario on Nintendo, Halo on Microsoft, or Uncharted on Sony, every gaming platform has historically had exclusive games that can't be played anywhere else. Imagine if Google Stadia had secured Fortnite as an exclusive game - Fortnite would probably have not been as successful as it is now, but Stadia may likely have received a serious boost in consumer attention, all things staying the same.
And that's exactly how steam was introduced, via half life 2
No surprise here, even their Android game related tooling is a joke compared with what Apple offers on iOS SDK.
SpriteKite, SceneKit and MetalKit aren't without their share of bugs, however on Android's side they are just inexistent.
At any GDC, or IO, the only thing Google seems to be able to talk about is PlayServices, even the Vulkan support on Android is a joke, asking developers to clone github repositories and compile shaderc from scratch.
They just don't know how to talk to game developers.
SpriteKite, SceneKit and MetalKit aren't without their share of bugs, however on Android's side they are just inexistent.
At any GDC, or IO, the only thing Google seems to be able to talk about is PlayServices, even the Vulkan support on Android is a joke, asking developers to clone github repositories and compile shaderc from scratch.
They just don't know how to talk to game developers.
I don't know about anyone else, but if any of these cloud gaming services want me as a customer they need to give me access to my existing Steam/GOG/Epic/Whatever library on their cloud system.
I'd also much rather build my own system though, unless they put a datacenter in my suburb I don't see this ever being a better experience than my own machine.
I'd also much rather build my own system though, unless they put a datacenter in my suburb I don't see this ever being a better experience than my own machine.
I don’t get the concept of buying a console or using a service that streams the games, meaning I cannot play them offline (I play games mostly in Transit, buses, subways, etc that don’t have wifi) - and meaning I ultimately don’t own the games I buy, and when Google predictably shuts this service down as it is notorious for doing, I don’t have anything to show for my investment?
I would never buy a serious console game on anything but hard media.
In a couple years, all the money people spent on games for Stadia will literally have been completely wasted - and my Sega Genesis I got when I was six, and the games I paid for 20 years ago will probably still work (I’ll admit bitrot is a concern, but that’s a hugely different issue), along with my PS5 or whatever I’m using at that point.
This is a zero-value, long-term net-loss concept for me. It boggles the mind.
I would never buy a serious console game on anything but hard media.
In a couple years, all the money people spent on games for Stadia will literally have been completely wasted - and my Sega Genesis I got when I was six, and the games I paid for 20 years ago will probably still work (I’ll admit bitrot is a concern, but that’s a hugely different issue), along with my PS5 or whatever I’m using at that point.
This is a zero-value, long-term net-loss concept for me. It boggles the mind.
I feel a bit like the world needed this in the 90s. I remember when you needed to constantly upgrade kit to play the latest games. Processors, RAM and the GPU all had a lifespan of about 2 years before they were obsolete. That was part of what pushed consoles: you knew you'd get 5 plus years of Sony PS? games even if they looked a bit blocky by year 4.
But hardware has out run gaming needs now. My 6 year old PC plays the latest games and streams 1080p at the same time without issue. I could probably mine some crypto in the background.
If I was constantly upgrading, a "rental" service like this would make sense. But I'm not. I'm struggling to justify any changes to my setup. So why would I pay to rent someone else's?
And thats without the fact that Steam already offers games virtually on demand or that consoles have a big chunk of the market sewn up...
But hardware has out run gaming needs now. My 6 year old PC plays the latest games and streams 1080p at the same time without issue. I could probably mine some crypto in the background.
If I was constantly upgrading, a "rental" service like this would make sense. But I'm not. I'm struggling to justify any changes to my setup. So why would I pay to rent someone else's?
And thats without the fact that Steam already offers games virtually on demand or that consoles have a big chunk of the market sewn up...
I think I'm one of the target markets for stadia. A big time gamer in my teenss and college/early post college days before career and family made me feel out more casual games. I only play a few AAA title to completion in a year now but have a large library of games on Steam, Epic and GoG that I never had the time or interest to finish.
I was excited about Stadia when I first heard of it but needing to buy hardware for a service that will likely be languishing in a year and sunsetted in two just didn't interest me. I'm more likely to spend money on a 8 times more expensive VR set than a cheap piece of hardware that will be collecting dust in a drawer soon.
Google's reputation for discontinuing projects already influences me. Is this something that people outside the HN bubble think about?
I was excited about Stadia when I first heard of it but needing to buy hardware for a service that will likely be languishing in a year and sunsetted in two just didn't interest me. I'm more likely to spend money on a 8 times more expensive VR set than a cheap piece of hardware that will be collecting dust in a drawer soon.
Google's reputation for discontinuing projects already influences me. Is this something that people outside the HN bubble think about?
>needing to buy hardware for a service that will likely be languishing in a year and sunsetted in two
Just use your old rig. I used the same CPU for 7 years and it was never the bottleneck. The only reason I upgraded was because a bad PSU killed my GPU after 5 years. You order the GPU from your local online shop (Amazon is overpriced), remove 3 screws to open the case and plop in the new card. This doesn't take more than 15 minutes and you're good to go.
Just use your old rig. I used the same CPU for 7 years and it was never the bottleneck. The only reason I upgraded was because a bad PSU killed my GPU after 5 years. You order the GPU from your local online shop (Amazon is overpriced), remove 3 screws to open the case and plop in the new card. This doesn't take more than 15 minutes and you're good to go.
You don't need to buy hardware for Stadia (sort of). At the moment, I do think you need to be invited by an existing member, to get an activation code , without buying the "founder's edition" - which is a controller and a chromecast ultra.
But in general, you don't need either of those things to play games on stadia. You can use any controller (or kb/m, and any device that runs chrome, AFAIK).
But in general, you don't need either of those things to play games on stadia. You can use any controller (or kb/m, and any device that runs chrome, AFAIK).
I don't think this is a good defense of the service, in fact quite the opposite. The fact that you can't just buy access to it without buying the chromecast ultra hardware bundle just shows how half-baked the whole thing is.
Especially since the chromecast ultra doesn't support non-Stadia controllers, so if you do want to play with say an Xbox controller google is bundlefucking you with hardware you will never use, which certainly doesn't make the service look any more attractive to people who might otherwise be interested.
Especially since the chromecast ultra doesn't support non-Stadia controllers, so if you do want to play with say an Xbox controller google is bundlefucking you with hardware you will never use, which certainly doesn't make the service look any more attractive to people who might otherwise be interested.
IMO the biggest mistake they made was going with Linux instead of Windows. They were aiming to be Netflix for gaming but while Netflix could add any title to it's service as soon as they got the rights for it, developers need to port their games to Linux(& Vulkan) to run on Stadia. This is not an easy feat. For Destiny 2 Google had to depute a couple of its developers to work out of Bungie's office for over 6 months.
https://ajit.dhiwal.com/2020/01/google-stadia-shouldve-used-...
https://ajit.dhiwal.com/2020/01/google-stadia-shouldve-used-...
1) Microsoft has no incentive to cut a deal with or assist Google since they have their own online gaming service.
2) Google would be highly unenthusiastic about using Windows both culturally and because of the need to hire large numbers of engineers with deep Windows expertise.
2) Google would be highly unenthusiastic about using Windows both culturally and because of the need to hire large numbers of engineers with deep Windows expertise.
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I do genuinely wonder what the appeal was to build an entirely new and slightly different hardware platform (using AMD hardware, like PS4/Xbox) when they could have easily licensed Gamestream like what Shadowplay did? Was NVIDIA not willing? Google probably already has massive data centers full of Nvidia GPUs.
Stadia is DOA, because of its absurd pricing and rollout, really strange design decisions (usb controller for select phones, but wireless for Chromecast?)
Stadia is DOA, because of its absurd pricing and rollout, really strange design decisions (usb controller for select phones, but wireless for Chromecast?)
I already own a Chromecast Ultra. Why would I want to pay for another one? I have no idea why I can't buy a controller by itself for $69.
It will be interesting to see how they treat paying customers when they inevitably shut this thing down.
It will be interesting to see how they treat paying customers when they inevitably shut this thing down.
Looks like they underestimates the power exclusive AAA titles to bring people in their platforms. Platforms like Steam and Epic without exclusive games is like buying bananas from the super market, I get them which ever is convenient. Having exclusives is like traveling, it brings people to you because certain things only that locale has and you must be there
The main issue is streaming services have too much latency to attract core gamers. I barely find Steam Link playable on my home network. Nothing breaks immersion more than lag. It’s like page load times. The occasional jitter matters. The lag spikes and compression artifacts are killers not the average latency.
At the end of the day, I think it boils down to simple arrogance and entitlement.
When you’re the owner of a successful indie game company and you’ve got some partnerships exec treating you like “big me little you” because I work at Google and you’re an indie who needs me and will work for free, it’s a real turn off.
When you’re the owner of a successful indie game company and you’ve got some partnerships exec treating you like “big me little you” because I work at Google and you’re an indie who needs me and will work for free, it’s a real turn off.
I think Stadia would make a good platform for virtual desktops running a fun blown Linux OS with Android App support. Almost every app you'd need for Windows has an Android app that is comparable. Maybe they could even support Windows too as a paid add-on.
I'm surprised Google still didn't use something like Wine (+dxvk) to bring more games to Stadia sooner, while the library of native Linux/Vulkan games is gradually growing (which isn't going to be super fast process). Is there a reason for that?
You can't just "bring games to Stadia". First off you need the approval from the devs. We've seen Blizzard and Bethesda pulling out their games from GeForce Now. Next, the way Stadia is designed, it requires actual porting to use its APIs, which is a non-trivial amount of work required from the devs.
You can argue if it's the right design or not, but as it is, it takes time and effort to move games to Stadia, so it's not as trivial as just running them on Wine.
You can argue if it's the right design or not, but as it is, it takes time and effort to move games to Stadia, so it's not as trivial as just running them on Wine.
Adding support for Stadia SDK (for remote input and video streaming and such) is not as difficult, as writing a Vulkan renderer in the first place, for a game that doesn't have it. Incentives are measured against the difficulty of the whole work.
I'm sure, using Wine+dxvk as a first step for existing games is a lot easier than writing native Vulkan renderer. In this sense, Google can actually provide one level of incentives for native games (higher one), and another for Wine use case.
I.e. developers can first release it in Wine (phase 1), and then make a native version for example (phase 2) to improve performance.
What Google could do, is to provide integration of their SDK with Wine for phase 1 above.
I'm sure, using Wine+dxvk as a first step for existing games is a lot easier than writing native Vulkan renderer. In this sense, Google can actually provide one level of incentives for native games (higher one), and another for Wine use case.
I.e. developers can first release it in Wine (phase 1), and then make a native version for example (phase 2) to improve performance.
What Google could do, is to provide integration of their SDK with Wine for phase 1 above.
Well, username checks out, since many people considered Stadia to be a physically impossible endeavor. The napkin math/physics behind Stadia barely checks out, but I still think it's worth continuing development on it.
Gaming is hard. It’s hard to disrupt when we have PlayStation, XBox, and Nintendo. Xbox was able to break in because they had Halo. Nintendo has tons of games people love.
PlayStation has a great ecosystem. You need more than just a Google name to break in.
PlayStation has a great ecosystem. You need more than just a Google name to break in.
Xbox also had Live, an easier dev story, and a willingness to persist - it's been around since 2001. And it took a long time losing money!
And Microsoft were already in the gaming space, both as a publisher and via PC technologies like DirectX.
Yes, and I imagine they learned from their involvement with the Dreamcast, as well.
That's a persistent myth; the team that launched the Xbox was an entirely different set of people in a different division from the team that worked on the Dreamcast collaboration with Sega.
and Apple Arcade, with a flat monthly fee
As with every area where google didn't have a dominant offering in place before strong competitors existed. Android being a possible exception because device vendors rallied around it so as not to be extinguished by apple.
Can’t someone go take a look at the Commodore 64/Amiga and Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and make a new programmable games console for the modern age?
Even something like a Raspberry Pi inside a keyboard enclosure would be good.
Even something like a Raspberry Pi inside a keyboard enclosure would be good.
Google used to use the term beta a lot in there past. I don't understand why Stadia wasn't tag with the beta or early access this would of put the problems and the media more at ease until the product was stable
The MBA took over and is afraid to show weakness with labels like "Beta".
Shame, they have such an opportunity on so many fronts.
I am actually very intrigued by the hardware, a powerful linux box which may make a cracking console in it's own right. Wouldn't mind one of those at home.
I am actually very intrigued by the hardware, a powerful linux box which may make a cracking console in it's own right. Wouldn't mind one of those at home.
Google doesn't really kill pay services. So while projects and random free services are killed all the time (too often probably), it's kinda unfair to apply that reputation to Stadia.
Starlink implementation (best case scenarios) will be the only thing that saves Stadia’s latency issue. Maybe Google knows something...
Early adopter of Stadia here. Even I am surprised they haven't shut down the service yet. I wonder when they'll pull the plug.
Google Stadia reminds me of the old adage: "Good business can save bad tech, but good tech can not save bad business."
Stadia works surprisingly well but has literally 0 games I'm interested in. Considering cancelling my Pro subscription soon.
It's hilarious. Many people commented on how long it would take before it ended up in killedbygoogle.com.
I don't trust a single product they launch these days. Usually it's best to wait 5 years and get a sense for its longevity.
What products do Google make that last longer these days? I feel the majority of new stuff ends up canned because it just doesn't hold up to the tech debt and costs for running the service at such huge scale.
I don't trust a single product they launch these days. Usually it's best to wait 5 years and get a sense for its longevity.
What products do Google make that last longer these days? I feel the majority of new stuff ends up canned because it just doesn't hold up to the tech debt and costs for running the service at such huge scale.
Stadia is already dead. I don't know anyone in Europe who is using it.
This whole sector is currently just super weird.
GeForce NOW has been somewhat successful but has had support from both Bethesda and Activision recently pulled.
Meanwhile, Google is just kinda half-arsing it around, even tho they would easily have the money and infrastructure to create something like a "killer-app" for the scalability of gaming in the cloud.
But apparently there isn't any attempt at something like that, so what's even the point?
GeForce NOW has been somewhat successful but has had support from both Bethesda and Activision recently pulled.
Meanwhile, Google is just kinda half-arsing it around, even tho they would easily have the money and infrastructure to create something like a "killer-app" for the scalability of gaming in the cloud.
But apparently there isn't any attempt at something like that, so what's even the point?
Google has a growing track record of ambitious half-measure projects.
Game streaming is very appealing to me on paper for competitive games. Compared to the traditional dedicated server scenario, cloud multiplayer gaming could nearly halve the player to player latency.
Game streaming is very appealing to me on paper for competitive games. Compared to the traditional dedicated server scenario, cloud multiplayer gaming could nearly halve the player to player latency.
Wait, how is adding more servers into the mix going to reduce latency?
I shoot. It takes 15 ms to show up on my screen.
My shot then takes 50 ms to make it to a server, which then takes another 50 ms to be sent to an opponent. What the opponent sees and what I see are off by 100 ms.
If all inputs were handled by the server then everyone would agree on what they see, but delayed by their latency to the server. Interpolation is exactly that. It has significant error and is a serious threat to low time-to-kill competitive games.
> If all inputs were handled by the server then everyone would agree on what they see, but delayed by their latency to the server
It's sort of like that already (server being the canonical state), except the link isn't gummed up by video streaming.
It's sort of like that already (server being the canonical state), except the link isn't gummed up by video streaming.
> If all inputs were handled by the server then everyone would agree on what they see
You can already have that; no need for streaming. For example, original Quake handles all input on the server and movement feels kinda like skating on ice with the latency. You can feel the latency when you shoot; your gun doesn't actually fire until the server acknowledges it. I've played Quake online somewhat recently, and I absolutely hate how it feels. I can't imagine anyone wanting to play like that. There's a damn good reason why newer engines added client side prediction, even if it makes different players' view of the game inconsistent.
Unreal Tournament, up to UT2004, (maybe later -- I'm not familiar enough with newer ones) are similar. I think they added prediction for player's movement at some point, and that alone makes it feel much better, but jump pads (and such) are still unpredicted, shooting still has latency (I can't recall the details; it's possible that your firing animation/sound is instant but actual projectile only appears on your screen once the server acknowledges it).
It's great when you're playing with <20ms ping but it absolutely sucks to have little to no prediction with higher ping. I much prefer unlagged Quake 3 engine games, where hitscan weapons hit what you see on your screen (they're latency compensated on the server). Otoh some people argue for Unreal because everything's synchronized and you don't see the ugly side effects of prediction, like getting shot right after you leap into safety behind a corner.
Notice that interpolation and prediction are two different things! Interpolation actually increases latency; I turn it low or off in Quake 3. The result is that everyone's movement is jerky (they update when the server sends an update; higher packet rate is better). If you enable interpolation, then their location is going to be interpolated between two most recent updates.
You can already have that; no need for streaming. For example, original Quake handles all input on the server and movement feels kinda like skating on ice with the latency. You can feel the latency when you shoot; your gun doesn't actually fire until the server acknowledges it. I've played Quake online somewhat recently, and I absolutely hate how it feels. I can't imagine anyone wanting to play like that. There's a damn good reason why newer engines added client side prediction, even if it makes different players' view of the game inconsistent.
Unreal Tournament, up to UT2004, (maybe later -- I'm not familiar enough with newer ones) are similar. I think they added prediction for player's movement at some point, and that alone makes it feel much better, but jump pads (and such) are still unpredicted, shooting still has latency (I can't recall the details; it's possible that your firing animation/sound is instant but actual projectile only appears on your screen once the server acknowledges it).
It's great when you're playing with <20ms ping but it absolutely sucks to have little to no prediction with higher ping. I much prefer unlagged Quake 3 engine games, where hitscan weapons hit what you see on your screen (they're latency compensated on the server). Otoh some people argue for Unreal because everything's synchronized and you don't see the ugly side effects of prediction, like getting shot right after you leap into safety behind a corner.
Notice that interpolation and prediction are two different things! Interpolation actually increases latency; I turn it low or off in Quake 3. The result is that everyone's movement is jerky (they update when the server sends an update; higher packet rate is better). If you enable interpolation, then their location is going to be interpolated between two most recent updates.
I'm somewhat sure they had movement prediction and client-side replication in the original UT. I base it on the following:
- Vague recollection of the "I hit you with a rocket salvo and saw it explode, and you didn't die, and my rockets suddenly reappeared" moments from when I played it as a kid;
- Memories of reading the papers on network architecture in UT back around 2004-2006, which I'm convinced were describing the pre-2004 version.
- Memories of digging deep into UnrealScript around ~2001, and struggling with understanding what's up with all that "proxy" keyword and "replication" stuff.
- Vague recollection of the "I hit you with a rocket salvo and saw it explode, and you didn't die, and my rockets suddenly reappeared" moments from when I played it as a kid;
- Memories of reading the papers on network architecture in UT back around 2004-2006, which I'm convinced were describing the pre-2004 version.
- Memories of digging deep into UnrealScript around ~2001, and struggling with understanding what's up with all that "proxy" keyword and "replication" stuff.
When you say "interpolation" do you mean "smoothing"?
Interpolatiin is filing in missing data. Smoothing is adding error to eliminate discontinuity.
Why not both? The data you receive from a server is discontinuous. You interpolate (and potentially extrapolate) to fill in missing data to eliminate discontinuity.
The problem is trading server latency for input latency, which is much worse. Most console gamers probably wouldn't mind it as much as they're used to TV latency, but the higher you go in competitive games, input/display latency becomes much more important. And if you count PC gamers it's much more of an uphill battle as display latency there is miniscule compared to consoles & televisions.
> Compared to the traditional dedicated server scenario, cloud multiplayer gaming could nearly halve the player to player latency.
There's still the network latency from your streaming edge to the game server, and yours to the streaming edge. You can just use the same optimized routing to reach the shared game server.
Improving routing or using multi-pathing solutions can achieve a similar result. Things like Haste, which offer optimized routes to supported games and shoot your packets across 4+ of them at once for redundancy, can cut your lag tremendously. Haste is a particularly good example because, at least from my packet capture, it looks like they're partnering with ISPs and putting their edge nodes in ISP datacenters.
> Compared to the traditional dedicated server scenario, cloud multiplayer gaming could nearly halve the player to player latency.
There's still the network latency from your streaming edge to the game server, and yours to the streaming edge. You can just use the same optimized routing to reach the shared game server.
Improving routing or using multi-pathing solutions can achieve a similar result. Things like Haste, which offer optimized routes to supported games and shoot your packets across 4+ of them at once for redundancy, can cut your lag tremendously. Haste is a particularly good example because, at least from my packet capture, it looks like they're partnering with ISPs and putting their edge nodes in ISP datacenters.
The problem cloud gaming would solve is having all players be presented the same game state at the same time. No other topology I know of would have all clients agree on the game state at the same real-world time.
You're being downvoted because what you're suggesting is fundamentally impossible and not at all how game netcode works. You're also ignoring many other latency bottlenecks from controller input, monitor refresh rate, client CPU/GPU, server CPU/GPU, the network, and probably others I'm completely unaware of.
At best Google is handling most of the graphics rendering, but those graphics are still being encoded/decoded client side by different hardware. All the other bottlenecks also remain.
50-250ms latencies are game breaking in many contexts and game genres. Google does not sync these latencies between clients because that would also be game breaking. If you're interested in reading more on these topics checkout some of the gamedev literature for Doom and similar "early" FPS titles. They're filled with fascinating hacks for making clients seem like they are in sync when the truth is anything but.
At best Google is handling most of the graphics rendering, but those graphics are still being encoded/decoded client side by different hardware. All the other bottlenecks also remain.
50-250ms latencies are game breaking in many contexts and game genres. Google does not sync these latencies between clients because that would also be game breaking. If you're interested in reading more on these topics checkout some of the gamedev literature for Doom and similar "early" FPS titles. They're filled with fascinating hacks for making clients seem like they are in sync when the truth is anything but.
>You're being downvoted because what you're suggesting is fundamentally impossible and not at all how game netcode works.
In theory you wouldn't have netcode. You would just have "splitscreen" multiplayer where each player only sees their own display.
In theory you wouldn't have netcode. You would just have "splitscreen" multiplayer where each player only sees their own display.
That means one single machine is rendering the game for all players, and with modern game engines that can reliably scale to maybe 4 players. Even then, that would come at the cost of graphical fidelity compared to practically any other game on the market. (Some modern games get away with it because of distance from the TV obscuring interlaced rendering or checkerboard rendering)
Assuming you build on this by having some unsecured shared state, e.g.: hypervisor shared memory, and all clients rendering their own game -- that means you're now restricting gaming by geographic region. If you do that and segregate players by area, you would fragment the playerbase and eventually kill off the game as any loss of popularity snowballs.
Assuming you build on this by having some unsecured shared state, e.g.: hypervisor shared memory, and all clients rendering their own game -- that means you're now restricting gaming by geographic region. If you do that and segregate players by area, you would fragment the playerbase and eventually kill off the game as any loss of popularity snowballs.
That last part is largely something that should happen. I never want to play counter strike with someone more than 1000 miles away from me.
Being downvoted? 0 points doesn’t seem like a largely unpopular opinion. I’m making a high level point. I am aware of the details that contribute to user experience, and latency specifically, but most of them are unnecessary, and even detract from a conversation at this level.
Why do you mention google’s implementation as if it was something I was suggesting would be suitable for competitive gaming? I am suggesting that total player-to-player latency is reduced if all clients and the server are combined into one system.
Why do you mention google’s implementation as if it was something I was suggesting would be suitable for competitive gaming? I am suggesting that total player-to-player latency is reduced if all clients and the server are combined into one system.
I find the HN silent-downvote frustrating (when the comment was adding to the discussion), so I tried to offer an explanation for it. I didn't know if you had 0 points or -10.
To the point though, I still think it's unrealistic to completely change game architectures in order for the client to be entirely "dumb". We need client logic for latency interpolation for most multiplayer games (and most games do have a strong multiplayer component even traditionally single player games like GTA).
And I think we've arrived at the elephant in the room: Google wants studios to rewrite their games for Stadia's latency models and that just ain't gonna happen for 100 different reasons, not least of which being that most studios are still on 10+ year old game engines.
To the point though, I still think it's unrealistic to completely change game architectures in order for the client to be entirely "dumb". We need client logic for latency interpolation for most multiplayer games (and most games do have a strong multiplayer component even traditionally single player games like GTA).
And I think we've arrived at the elephant in the room: Google wants studios to rewrite their games for Stadia's latency models and that just ain't gonna happen for 100 different reasons, not least of which being that most studios are still on 10+ year old game engines.
With a central-server game all clients agree on the game state (it's the server's state). With a peer-to-peer game you need more complicated protocols, but you still fundamentally end up with all clients agreeing on the game state.
Suppose Player A in San Francisco and Player B in London see each other on their screens and both click the shoot button. Neither of them can know who shot first until a network roundtrip has happened between them - hell, if their timing was precise enough then under relativity it might be physically impossible to categorically state that one was before or after the other. So either each sees (on their own screen) that they have shot first and this is later contradicted for one of them, or neither of them sees their shot being made until after the network roundtrip has happened. That choice and that tradeoff has to be made, and I don't see that cloud gaming makes any difference: either you have latency for everything you do (and whether that latency is between a thin client communicating with the game server or a thick client communicating with another thick client is really neither here nor there), or you will see inconsistencies.
Suppose Player A in San Francisco and Player B in London see each other on their screens and both click the shoot button. Neither of them can know who shot first until a network roundtrip has happened between them - hell, if their timing was precise enough then under relativity it might be physically impossible to categorically state that one was before or after the other. So either each sees (on their own screen) that they have shot first and this is later contradicted for one of them, or neither of them sees their shot being made until after the network roundtrip has happened. That choice and that tradeoff has to be made, and I don't see that cloud gaming makes any difference: either you have latency for everything you do (and whether that latency is between a thin client communicating with the game server or a thick client communicating with another thick client is really neither here nor there), or you will see inconsistencies.
I beta tested googles streaming on aco and it had more latency than online games have now. It's great for single player games, but isn't nearly there for competitive. Imagine playing a competitive game and the textures drop to 144p randomly, and I was testing this software on a fiber connection.
I don’t think any service is where it needs to be. Most importantly the servers running the game clients are not the same ones hosting the game servers.
The correct word is foundering.
Google needs to just give up and realize they're an ad and marketing company, and continue to be very, very good at it.
Honestly their work on fringe projects like this seem more like PR than anything. It makes them look like an innovative company with consumer-facing products, rather than an ad company.
Interesting idea. It would be sad to be an engineering team working on these poorly managed products, then.
Having worked in a company that was more of a PR exercise than something intended to actually generate revenue, it's an interesting mix. You get the time to engineer everything really well, you're encouraged to use the latest technology, go to conferences, and improve your own skills. At its best, it's the same kind of "blue-sky engineering" that you hear about people having done at Xerox Parc or Bell Labs. But without that bit of pressure to actually deliver something, it's very easy to get lost in overengineered architecture, and if someone high up makes a bad design decision it's very hard for the consequences to be brought to bear in a way that matters.
Wow, what a surprise.
/s
/s
Ambitious or half-assed? You'd have to know literally nothing about gaming to call Stadia ambitious.
No visible content with JS disabled. Bleah.
If they really want to reach gamers, they should buy Discord and integrate it into their platform.
And then we can make fun of them for having yet another chat app. It's a win-win.
And then we can make fun of them for having yet another chat app. It's a win-win.
As a gamer I have bigger issues with Google. I would rather prefer Japanese or Chinese companies to be better custodians of gaming industry than Google. Microsoft too in my opinion has done a better job.
It is only matter of time before some google snowflake would call a game transphobic or "too violent" etc. and write lengthy posts that the game be pushed off Stadia. Right now this is not a problem but if google becomes 1st or 2nd largest player this would be increasingly a problem.
I am a big lover of violent video games and Google is not good for such games IMO.
It is only matter of time before some google snowflake would call a game transphobic or "too violent" etc. and write lengthy posts that the game be pushed off Stadia. Right now this is not a problem but if google becomes 1st or 2nd largest player this would be increasingly a problem.
I am a big lover of violent video games and Google is not good for such games IMO.
1. Appeal to developers by making exclusivity deals with them (e.g: we give you a bag of money upfront if you only sell your game via our store for a year) which is really beneficial for developers as the game business is quite risky. The developer gets guaranteed cash and Epic gets everyone who would buy that game on their platform (minus the people who are outraged by the exclusivity deal)
2. Appeal to the customers by giving away free games every week. Epic pays developers for you, so you get a free game while the developer also gets paid. Epic wants you to have a library on their platform so you keep coming back, and because you need to visit the store to claim the free games they literally train their customers to use the store, from there it's a small step to convert them to paying customers with good deals.
It's absolutely baffling to me Google didn't do anything like this, they have literally more money then they could spend, yet they didn't do anything to get people to actually use their service. Compare it to the Gmail or Chrome launch suddenly there was this 'free' product you could jump onto, it was technologically superior and exciting and it came out of nowhere. Imagine if they did that with Stadia, just suddenly release it without fanfare, all your favorite games are on there and you can play X hours a week for free or something like that.