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Stadia needs a plan B if it continues to not gain users

RogerL

RogerL

Member
Oct 30, 2017
606
Stadia needs a few exclusives made especially for Stadia to sell the platform.

So what kind of games could Stadia do better than anyone else?
  1. Physics simulation (real world and fantasy)
    • Simulate what is close, share burden with others that are close (might even move player close together to the same physical server in the hub
  2. Huge world maps
    • Datacenter class storage - no need to have 1TB/console, one server could serve several "consoles"
      • PS5/XBox System X might be faster. But Googles will be bigger! (reducing number of copies)
  3. Low latency(!) from world view update to renderer!
  4. AI
    • NPCs (Google are quite good at AI and could add special hardware)
  5. Coop play, render each players view independently, join before sending to play monitor
    • Consider an always on RPG where you can visit a friend and share their big screen/projector, just move it back to phone when leaving...
  6. No cheating, can't even select lower quality nor alternative graphics driver for better visibility
What does this sound like?
  • Massive multiplayer RPGs (PC and traditional consoles will struggle, and fail, to be able to do what Stadia could)
  • Anybody could join, no need to buy anything (vision)
 
truncated_pachyderm

truncated_pachyderm

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,367
tbh I like Google less and less each day. I don't believe they have any sincere interest or passion for gaming. It seems like they are approaching this as a science experiment.

Even Apple, who has kept gaming at arm's length for as long as possible despite it making them a ton of App Store money, seems to have a better grasp of what we as gamers want in terms of quality content with a fair price.
 
Villein

Villein

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
1,982
They need exclusives that take advantage of the Cloud, this way it sets them apart from dedicated devices, thus giving a reason to care about Stadia
 

Deleted member 16452

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,276
MistaTwo said:
Everyone gets caught up on the fact that they didn't call it a beta, despite the fact the word 'founder' and 'early access' have been used to describe this phase of their rollout, both of which essentially mean the same thing.




These takes always come off as concern trolling to me, especially considering very few of the KilledByGoogle services are ever consumer facing paid services.
The only service I can think of that is in any way comparable to Stadia is probably their VR platform, Daydream.
I have asked several times and never got an answer, but how many paid consumer facing services has Google actually killed off?
Everyone seems scared they are going to lose their content, but I just don't see it. I still have every paid game or movie I have bought on Google Play.

Pretty sure Microsoft has a much longer list of defunct gaming services, no matter how you look at it.
Remember GFWL? What about UWP? Kinect?
Not too mention probably a couple of dozen game studio closures over their history.

Microsoft is definitely going in the right direction, and I am not saying they are going to suddenly cancel Game Pass, but it feels like the concerns around Google's history of killing projects are only very tangentially related to the current product they are offering.
Click to expand...
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Microsoft has over a decade of proving themselves to really be all in with their main gaming platform(s).

Google has not earned that benefit of the doubt yet.
 
jroc74

jroc74

Member
Oct 27, 2017
28,995
Their plan B should have been a console for offline play. Or play on PC, Chrome book, something.

This is where Sony and MS have the advantage.
 
Majora's Mask

Majora's Mask

Member
Oct 26, 2017
1,562
I don't think they had a Plan A, let alone a Plan B, lol.

In all seriousness, I don't think either Nintendo or google would be interested in a partnership like that. Their plan B should be to revamp how they offer their service, as in, change it to a Netflix kind of service.

Also, I reckon they should have waited until the service could be available in more countries.
 
roguesquirrel

roguesquirrel

The Fallen
Oct 29, 2017
5,487
Ive always seen their plan b as "selling it as an advertising tool on youtube"

Like that seems the most likely outcome. Stadia the service will plummet, but Stadia as a brand will continue as in sometimes you'll get a playable ad before a youtube video with a "powered by Stadia" banner somewhere
 
Anthony Hopkins

Anthony Hopkins

Banned
Feb 10, 2018
17,534
If stadia does not invest what they need to, then they should stop hemorrhaging money on the project.

A gaming platform lives or dies on its games.
 
ContraWars

ContraWars

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,517
Canada
Plan B: Acquire every big publisher for exclusivity. Turn Phil Harrison into the greatest supervillain the industry has ever known.
 
JasoNsider

JasoNsider

Developer
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
2,148
Canada
It's obviously looking bad even before the "real" launch, but I wouldn't fully count them out yet. There's so much they could do with rock bottom pricing and give-aways. Free tier means many of us might give it a swing if the price is right?
 
Dunlop

Dunlop

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,477
JasoNsider said:
It's obviously looking bad even before the "real" launch, but I wouldn't fully count them out yet. There's so much they could do with rock bottom pricing and give-aways. Free tier means many of us might give it a swing if the price is right?
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I think we will find out soon enough, they have been radio silent for close to a month now. As of today there is not a single game on sale.

We'll see if Jason Schreier prediction about drastic changes in their model is about to take place
 
MistaTwo

MistaTwo

SNK Gaming Division Studio 1
Verified
Oct 24, 2017
2,456
2Bee said:
Microsoft has over a decade of proving themselves to really be all in with their main gaming platform(s).

Google has not earned that benefit of the doubt yet.
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So, we just ignore the existence of Google Play as a gaming platform?
Or have we cycled back to the point where mobile games aren't real games?
 
MistaTwo

MistaTwo

SNK Gaming Division Studio 1
Verified
Oct 24, 2017
2,456
2Bee said:
Google Play is not a main gaming platform.

Its a storefront for a diverse selection of apps on multiple types of hardware.
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It is more than a storefront now and is a wide variety of product lines, including Google Play Games which offers online gaming services such as achievements, leaderboards, cloud saves, and gamer profiles.
Just seems like semantics to me...
 

Deleted member 16452

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,276
MistaTwo said:
It is more than a storefront now and is a wide variety of product lines, including Google Play Games which offers online gaming services such as achievements, leaderboards, cloud saves, and gamer profiles.
Just seems like semantics to me...
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Its still not, or has ever been, a gaming platform tied to any kind of specific hardware.

It wasn't even called Google "play" in the begining, it was just a generic app store, cause I was there on the first Galaxy phone and saw how it was.
 
MistaTwo

MistaTwo

SNK Gaming Division Studio 1
Verified
Oct 24, 2017
2,456
2Bee said:
Its still not, or has ever been, a gaming platform tied to any kind of specific hardware.

It wasn't even called Google "play" in the begining, it was just a generic app store, cause I was there on the first Galaxy phone and saw how it was.
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I would say that defining it as needing to be tied to a specific kind of hardware is probably an out-dated way of thinking about this.
You could even argue that Stadia wouldn't count in that respect either!

No matter how the semantics play out in your head, the truth is still that Google has been running one of the more successful gaming platforms/storefronts/online service providers/whatever you want to call it in the industry for more than a decade at this point.
And yes, I do remember the days of the Android Market as well and actually helped developed apps for it.
It also had an extremely rocky start and was a goddamn mess of a rollout that makes the Stadia launch look competent IMO.

SinkFla said:
Yeah I have never heard of Google Play being referred to as a platform lol.

No offense MistaTwo we will just have to settle this debate in SamSho.
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This is mostly because the idea of gaming platforms is changing very quickly.
Think about it this way, if you jump to the official page of a new mobile game you heard about what are the two icons that will greet you?
App Store and Google Play.

But sure, catch me on the EVO Japan floor next week ;)
 
Buff DrinkLots

Buff DrinkLots

Member
Dec 20, 2017
1,094
It's sad because the potential is there, but they're doing everything I can think of to make the product unappealing.
 
Sulik2

Sulik2

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,168
Relaunch in the spring when it's actually finished with a game subscription service might let them survive. In reality it's already dead.
 

Deleted member 16452

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,276
MistaTwo said:
I would say that defining it as needing to be tied to a specific kind of hardware is probably an out-dated way of thinking about this.
You could even argue that Stadia wouldn't count in that respect either!

No matter how the semantics play out in your head, the truth is still that Google has been running one of the more successful gaming platforms/storefronts/online service providers/whatever you want to call it in the industry for more than a decade at this point.
And yes, I do remember the days of the Android Market as well and actually helped developed apps for it.
It also had an extremely rocky start and was a goddamn mess of a rollout that makes the Stadia launch look competent IMO.



This is mostly because the idea of gaming platforms is changing very quickly.
Think about it this way, if you jump to the official page of a new mobile game you heard about what are the two icons that will greet you?
App Store and Google Play.

But sure, catch me on the EVO Japan floor next week ;)
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Click to shrink...


Can I use the stadia on any other hardware than a google stadia?
 
thepenguin55

thepenguin55

Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,813
I have to be honest, I forgot about Stadia until a video popped up in my YouTube feed and now I'm here. I don't know that anyone truly expected it to take the world by storm but the current situation for Stadia seems so grim based on some of the stories that have come out about it recently and all in a way that I don't know anyone could've anticipated.

People keep saying that they need to lock down a major exclusive but at this point what could they get? Yeah, they're Google but their product looks to be dead in the water so even for a timed exclusive what major player would want to lock their big AAA game to Stadia? Despite how it may sound I'm not a Stadia hater (I initially preordered one but cancelled a month or two ahead of launch) but this seems like a really demoralizing time to be a Stadia developer.
 
bdbdbd

bdbdbd

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,904
*tries to ignore the riff-raff who think they're immensely clever making jokes about the services Google has killed*

Only because there seems to be such an intense death wish within a sizable faction of the gaming community do I therefore agree that Google probably needs to make some shifts in their strategy and make the most of early 2020 to build momentum before the next-gen platforms arrive. Probably ditch the 4k/60fps "benefit" of the Pro sub and find some other way to incentivize beyond the free games. Perhaps a lengthier trial period on ALL games.

If they can deliver on State Share like they originally presented, that's another area where I see a lot of latitude for incentivizing a Pro sub. Let Pro subscribers get x amount of hours of State Share play time free with their sub.
 
thediamondage

thediamondage

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,265
On the plus side they are really good about refunds. I pre ordered, played for 1 day, realized this thing isn't for me, and got an immediate refund (and returned). Its such a bizarre thing they have done, everything was done in the wrong order. They only started building out dev studios to make exclusive games AFTER they launched, they talked a lot about stuff you can only do on stadia but haven't really implemented most of it, and they don't seem very interested in paying devs to make the stadia versions of games good, let alone the best. Everything is half assed and bizarrely incompetent.

It'll be interesting to see if they just kinda putter along for a while happy to lose a little bit of money on experimenting with new areas for them, but not really committing the kind of vast resources they would need to get more people to pay. They are going to get drowned out in the noise of PS5/XB2 so really once that cycle begins soon, I wonder if they will quietly fade away for a while, apply lessons learned, and relaunch Stadia v2 in 2021 or will they will commit to a full engagement and attack in 2020? So far there is zero indication they have any desire to do that, or even real plans - I still don't know what their "f2p" plans are or how people will play Destiny 2 on the free version (can they?)
 
MistaTwo

MistaTwo

SNK Gaming Division Studio 1
Verified
Oct 24, 2017
2,456
2Bee said:
Can I use the stadia on any other hardware than a google stadia?
Click to expand...
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You mean to play the native linux build directly? No...just like you generally can't play Google Play games on non-android systems.
Would have rather me have said Android in that first post?
I used Google Play because my entire point was adressing the fear of losing a paid for product on a google operated gaming service.
I feel like that is a lot more of a relevant comparison than most of the things listed as killed by google over the years.

Anyway, maybe my original point was misconstrued or something but I was just pointing out that I don't see the same history of Google killing off any of their services that fall in the same scope as Stadia (i.e. a consumer facing service selling digital products).

Just feels like there is some kind of weird pearl clutching about Google coming to steal the games you bought on Stadia, but when I ask about an actual real life scenario where this has happened in the past everyone goes quiet. Maybe it's just so obvious I am missing it, but the only thing I can think of is their VR venture.
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

Woke up, got a money tag, swears a lot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
92,830
here
plan b is a game subscription service day and date of Free launch

thats my bet
 
Tyaren

Tyaren

Character Artist
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
24,773
A good start would be games being streamed in highest quality visuals and performance possible. Stadia units are more powerful than Xbox One X, right? However many games look and perform worse on Stadia than on X. Like that there is no real incentive for console players that do care about visuals and performance to jump to Stadia. I actually was interested at first, but they lost me when I realized I am better off with my consoles.
 

Deleted member 16452

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,276
MistaTwo said:
You mean to play the native linux build directly? No...just like you generally can't play Google Play games on non-android systems.
Would have rather me have said Android in that first post?
I used Google Play because my entire point was adressing the fear of losing a paid for product on a google operated gaming service.
I feel like that is a lot more of a relevant comparison than most of the things listed as killed by google over the years.

Anyway, maybe my original point was misconstrued or something but I was just pointing out that I don't see the same history of Google killing off any of their services that fall in the same scope as Stadia (i.e. a consumer facing service selling digital products).

Just feels like there is some kind of weird pearl clutching about Google coming to steal the games you bought on Stadia, but when I ask about an actual real life scenario where this has happened in the past everyone goes quiet. Maybe it's just so obvious I am missing it, but the only thing I can think of is their VR venture.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Its not pearl clutching, Google is notorious for killing off stuff that even remotely underperforms and they are more hardcore about this than just about any other tech company.
 
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