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"Google kills all their products" is a bit of an overused meme trotted out at any launch... But for Stadia it's a pretty legitimate concern, I'd say. The model

"Google kills all their products" is a bit of an overused meme trotted out at any launch... But for Stadia it's a pretty legitimate concern, I'd say. The model where you're still "buying" the games ties you to the ongoing operation of the service much more strongly than in many of their services where an eventual migration might be a little painful, but it's still possible. The counterargument would be that they've deployed a ton of network capacity and GPU resources for cloud computing anyway, and so Stadia is just riding on those coattails... But it's certainly not a promising track record.

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
> The counterargument would be that they've deployed a ton of network capacity and GPU resources for cloud computing anyway, and so Stadia is just riding on those coattails... But it's certainly not a promising track record. Exactly, in fact, Stadia is really just a way for Google to subsidize their cloud GPU buildout. Do you think those expensive GPUs are sitting idle in the meantime? No way! They're crunching numbers or spot instances for AI/ML workloads.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  That's...probably not true at this moment. They're using AMD GPUs, which generally support the sorts of workloads folks need, and AFAIK they haven't opened up support for AMD GPU spot instances to users. The OpenCL ML ecosystem is really lacking at the moment.
  - earhart 7y ago
    PlaidML? (Disclaimer -- I'm one of the devs. Even though we were bought by Intel a year or so ago, we've been pretty good about keeping the AMD / OpenCL support intact.)
    - akhilcacharya 7y ago
      PlaidML is super cool, but it's not used by Google.
- smolder 7y ago
  And a way for them to key/voice/button log lots of gamers to collect training data for AIs and stuff of that nature.
baq 7y ago
if you think about it, it isn't that much different from steam, there's an offline mode there and gabe promised a way out if they ever go out of business, but the concern isn't completely remediated by either. the only sure way to have your games working in the future is - unsurprisingly and unfortunately - to crack your copies.
- dwheeler 7y ago
  There are fundamental differences between Stadia and Steam: 1. If Steam shuts down, Valve shuts down. If Stadia shuts down... Google is doing just fine. 2. What Stadia is attempting to do is much more technically challenging, and I've yet to see a strong reason people would want it. Steam fills a clear and unambiguous need, and does not depend on near-magic technology to work. 3. Steam works, right now, and is reliable. Stadia? It's unlikely to ever be reliable for many users. Maybe it will be, but that remains to be seen.
- zerocrates 7y ago
  Yes, I was going to mention Steam, but decided not to. Frankly I don't put a whole lot of stock in the assurances of an "escape hatch," I'm not really sure that such a thing is possible to reliably promise. The better "guarantee" on that end is the knowledge that Steam makes Valve lots and lots of money so they'll probably want to keep it running. The fact that you do have some sort of local copy and cracking would be an option if it came to it is some comfort also, though that's not really a solution that scales to the size of peoples' massive Steam libraries. There's also of course DRM-free stores like GOG as an alternative.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    For better and worse Valve is essentially the Steam company now, and they know that's where their bread is buttered. Google isn't going to become "the Stadia company", in the current revenue model they are never going to see a point where they make more revenue from Stadia than any other service they offer.
basilgohar 7y ago
Google doesn't kill all their products, but Google killing a.lot of their products is. There's a website dedicated aptly named GCemetary to track them. It's conveniently indexed by year. https://gcemetery.co/ https://gcemetery.co/

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago

> The counterargument would be that they've deployed a ton of network capacity and GPU resources for cloud computing anyway, and so Stadia is just riding on those coattails... But it's certainly not a promising track record. Exactly, in fact, Stadia is really just a way for Google to subsidize their cloud GPU buildout. Do you think those expensive GPUs are sitting idle in the meantime? No way! They're crunching numbers or spot instances for AI/ML workloads.

akhilcacharya 7y ago
That's...probably not true at this moment. They're using AMD GPUs, which generally support the sorts of workloads folks need, and AFAIK they haven't opened up support for AMD GPU spot instances to users. The OpenCL ML ecosystem is really lacking at the moment.
- earhart 7y ago
  PlaidML? (Disclaimer -- I'm one of the devs. Even though we were bought by Intel a year or so ago, we've been pretty good about keeping the AMD / OpenCL support intact.)
  - akhilcacharya 7y ago
    PlaidML is super cool, but it's not used by Google.
smolder 7y ago
And a way for them to key/voice/button log lots of gamers to collect training data for AIs and stuff of that nature.

baq 7y ago

if you think about it, it isn't that much different from steam, there's an offline mode there and gabe promised a way out if they ever go out of business, but the concern isn't completely remediated by either. the only sure way to have your games working in the future is - unsurprisingly and unfortunately - to crack your copies.

dwheeler 7y ago
There are fundamental differences between Stadia and Steam: 1. If Steam shuts down, Valve shuts down. If Stadia shuts down... Google is doing just fine. 2. What Stadia is attempting to do is much more technically challenging, and I've yet to see a strong reason people would want it. Steam fills a clear and unambiguous need, and does not depend on near-magic technology to work. 3. Steam works, right now, and is reliable. Stadia? It's unlikely to ever be reliable for many users. Maybe it will be, but that remains to be seen.
zerocrates 7y ago
Yes, I was going to mention Steam, but decided not to. Frankly I don't put a whole lot of stock in the assurances of an "escape hatch," I'm not really sure that such a thing is possible to reliably promise. The better "guarantee" on that end is the knowledge that Steam makes Valve lots and lots of money so they'll probably want to keep it running. The fact that you do have some sort of local copy and cracking would be an option if it came to it is some comfort also, though that's not really a solution that scales to the size of peoples' massive Steam libraries. There's also of course DRM-free stores like GOG as an alternative.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  For better and worse Valve is essentially the Steam company now, and they know that's where their bread is buttered. Google isn't going to become "the Stadia company", in the current revenue model they are never going to see a point where they make more revenue from Stadia than any other service they offer.

basilgohar 7y ago

Google doesn't kill all their products, but Google killing a.lot of their products is. There's a website dedicated aptly named GCemetary to track them. It's conveniently indexed by year. https://gcemetery.co/ https://gcemetery.co/