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[Bloomberg] Google’s Stadia Problem? A Video Game Unit That’s Not Googley Enough
- Thread starter --R
- Start date
No, it is a real thing that really happened.
The descriptions don't make sense because Google couldn't be bothered.
It's real
Stadia's issues were clear from the start | This Week in Business
With Stadia Games and Entertainment no longer a going concern, let's take a look back to the day it was announced at th…
www.gamesindustry.biz
Edit ah the tweet source is better above
I always thought it was odd how intent they were on rushing it. Could have easily just pottered away making new games, testing things few ready to go. Did they expect a mass snowballing effect if they went hard and fast? It's not like Microsoft is even there yet either.
Ahhhh, you're right. Completely forgot that's how they rolled it out. Thanks for the correction!
Stop(clap emoji)Hiring(clap emoji)Phil(clap emoji)Harrison.
I'll trust Jason's reporting over yours.
It's.. not, though?
I'll trust Jason's reporting over yours.
It's.. not, though?
The entire thing from the start always felt to me like a solution in search of a problem. Would't be the first time a potentially interesting technology is sort of sent out to market prematurely because the actual business end of it is half baked. I just never understood who this was for? The Venn diagram overlap of people who are A)interested in big budget AAA games like Cyberpunk and Assassin's Creed, especially running in 4K or on top of the line PC equipment which is how they initially really marketed this thing and B) find buying a console or building a PC to be way too much of an obstacle seems microscopic if not non-existent.
I just don't think that prospective audience exists right now in any meaningful way, certainly not significant enough to support the type of endeavor Google was positioning Stadia to be. Maybe in 5-10 years as technology and consumer expectations evolve, but certainly not now. In a world where Playstation, Switches and Xboxes are flying off shelves, and PC gaming seems to be on an uptick, what evidence is there that this audience of AAA/core gamers who don't want hardware exists (again, in a meaningful enough way to support this as a business model)?
I just don't think that prospective audience exists right now in any meaningful way, certainly not significant enough to support the type of endeavor Google was positioning Stadia to be. Maybe in 5-10 years as technology and consumer expectations evolve, but certainly not now. In a world where Playstation, Switches and Xboxes are flying off shelves, and PC gaming seems to be on an uptick, what evidence is there that this audience of AAA/core gamers who don't want hardware exists (again, in a meaningful enough way to support this as a business model)?
Not a 'shop.
Oh that's so weird.
Also I should have known that anyone doing the 'shop would have also edited the descriptions on the platform.
I will always question these "It's the future/revolution of the gaming industry" bits especially if it is made by a company that has not been in the gaming industry for decades.
Ubisoft and TakeTwo made bank. Tens of millions per port for major AAA games.
Considering how much Ubisoft put on Stadia, they must have made bank and Google got ripped hard considering how low the install base is over there.
Considering how much Ubisoft put on Stadia, they must have made bank and Google got ripped hard considering how low the install base is over there.
When you realize that video games are a brand new industry that's only existed for something like 3 or 4 years, it makes sense that big tech giants can't comprehend the amount of work involved in making games. It's uncharted territory.
...
Wait, what do you mean video games have existed for a while? Since the 1970s?
Not a 'shop.
It's real
Stadia's issues were clear from the start | This Week in Business
With Stadia Games and Entertainment no longer a going concern, let's take a look back to the day it was announced at th…
Edit ah the tweet source is better above
Holy shit. WHAT.
Right? It's like he and phil spencer split off fro the same being, and all the charm, business acumen and humanity went into one phil and the other got everything that was left.
Not a 'shop.
This is just incredible, especially in hindsight. Its like google knew they were making a failure.
While I agree with the general premise unless Google was willing to wait quite some time I'm not sure how giving 1 million to 20 different studios would help them in the short-term given how long it takes to make a game.
Stardew Valley, which was used as one of the examples, took 4.5 years to make. I don't think you can launch a streaming device and then tell people to wait 18 months let alone 2-4 years for content.
He will pop up as head of some other company few years after Stadia is done. Always happens. Some people just have luck, even if they have no idea what are doing lol.
This will never not be hilarious.God...20 milions per port, what the fuck am I reading?! This picture was really the most self aware thing about Stadia.
Yes, this is the question that Google as a company (and Stadia as a platform) never had an answer for.
The closest it gets to making sense is the idea that if people have a choice between a ~€500 console platform with native games and a ~€0 platform that streams the same games with some acceptable level of compromise, they'll pick the cheaper platform over the console. If all things were equal, that idea might work out pretty well. However, if the €0 streaming platform is missing a big pile of games, then it can't act as a replacement for the console and if it's not a replacement then suddenly the whole model is at risk.
That's probably why Google were paying over the odds for ports - they needed Stadia's library to look as much like the library of the other consoles as possible, and as quickly as possible before the new consoles arrived and started building their own userbase.
I imagine that the way that this worked in some internal Google presentation was that whoever was proposing Stadia made an argument that went something like this:
There's no evidence that gamers don't want hardware. There can't ever be evidence that gamers don't want hardware until gamers have the option of a successful streaming platform that isn't tied to hardware, and they don't right now. By the time there's a successful streaming platform, it'll be too late for us to launch one. If we want to be the successful streaming platform, we need to launch first, without waiting for evidence.
Also Google integrated Ubisoft+ so anyone (in the US) subscribing to Ubisoft+ gets those games on Stadia without needing to pay Google for them and without needing a Stadia Pro subscription. Google are paying Ubisoft to port games and then Google are paying for the hardware and bandwidth to stream those games to Ubisoft subscribers. It's got to be one of the weirdest first party/third party dynamics in the history of gaming.
Amazon may not have to pay as much since I think Luna is more like Geforce now and is more of a VM running the windows version of the games. Whereas Stadia actually required devs to put in the work to port the games to their platform.
I honestly feel bad for Google. The company is simply terrible at coming up with profitable new products. You'd think the executives would have learned their lesson like 10 years ago. The company doesn't seem to be able to shake its culture of techies with little business sense that its founders set.
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Jason's "20 x $1 million indie game post" seems short-sided. Who is to say that they didn't do that as well? An indie studio with a budget of $1 million dollars or less is going to be a small studio (5 people or less) and those studios are typically bad at delivering games quickly and on a schedule (just look at all the Kickstarters that go way over their ETA release date). It's not unusual for games from small indie studios to take 5+ years from initial conception to launch.
Dude either can mindhack people or has dirt on all CEOs in the industry. How is he still getting such high profile jobs after multiple failed launches is beyond me.
Ya I'm still upset that SNK put Sam Sho on Stadia and not regular PC. But they must have gotten a hell of a check.
Google writing a $10 million check for SamSho would be a no-brainer for SNK.
God...20 milions per port, what the fuck am I reading?! This picture was really the most self aware thing about Stadia.
Oh god I forgot that lmao
Now then, I see you here commenting on all this and stuff, but are you ever going to tell us how much Google paid you guys to port Cuthulu Saves Christmas? Hmmmm?*
(Fun game BTW, played it through to the end. Nice little addition to Pro for that month)
*This is sarcasm by the way. I know you cant disclose those details.
I think he's just going the extra step about how absurd the numbers are, rather than actually talking about that as a strategy.
The problem is they don't see anything through anymore. They try to break into new markets without the will to stay there as long as needed or sometimes they have genuinely good innovative ideas only to abandon the projects shortly after if they don't pay off right away
This is the first one where he's truly the face of the failure though. Kutaragi took the blame for the PS3 and Matrick for the XboxOne. Stadia is all Phil, I can't even name another executive involved with it.
It is amazing to me that incompetent high level execs like Harrison can completely fail repeatedly at their job and still get hired to tank new projects over, and over, and over, and over...
I dont say stadia hasnt issues. I mean the platform is perfect in terms of "hardware". Its by far the best cloud that there is. But than you have those games.... there were about 400 already in the running? On the other side you have ps5 that has huge stock issues. Its also the first console were most games will still be crossgen for a longer term than we ever have seen. I'm not saying thay stadia will get a boost soon, but in my imo, it will grow more and more. But those who are deciding which game should be ported are not on the right place. Who choose rdr2 over gta5 anyway when it comes to reaching most people. Again more and more on reddit comments about switching to stadia becausre skipping ps5... (multiple reasons)