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I think this might get the “oh, Google shuts down another area after a few years, color me surprised” crowd going, but for me this is totally the right move. T

by ketzo 6y ago

I think this might get the “oh, Google shuts down another area after a few years, color me surprised” crowd going, but for me this is totally the right move. There are a LOT of videogame developers out there. Many of them are quite good at what they do. The cloud gaming space, while much better than it used to be, has plenty of room for improvement — it’s not remotely mainstream yet, and there’s still time yet to mint the cloud gaming household name.

AlotOfReading 6y ago
I agree that they didn't need this in the first place, but this is the venture they started last March [1]. What changed for them in those 10 months that wasn't an obvious trend before? [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/4/21164801/google-stadia-shannon-studstill-playa-vista-studio-sony-santa-monica-god-of-war https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/4/21164801/google-stadia-sha...
- JulianMorrison 6y ago
  I presume that they came out of the gate with the sensible perspective that if you build it, and there aren't any games on it, the players won't come. My guess is what changed is that the infrastructure is now viable as infrastructure, they don't need to prop it up with their own game releases.
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
    Likely it’s the other way around and Stadia isn’t doing well enough to think that first party titles released in a few years time will pay development costs or necessarily have a platform to launch on.
  - Invictus0 6y ago
    IMO, it would be better to take the Nintendo approach and build out a couple generic games that highlight the best features of the system. Wii tennis and wii bowling ended up being my favorite Wii games.
    - throwaway98249 6y ago
      It seems a generic game to demonstrate new hardware is more difficult than we might assume... anyone for Kinect Sports?
- ketzo 6y ago
  That... is very interesting. I didn't realize the timeline was that short; I was assuming the game studio had started around the same time Stadia had (multiple years ago). First thought: it's probably pretty hard to start a new game studio during COVID? That article is dated March 4, oof. But yeah, that's weird.
ndesaulniers 6y ago
As a gamer, I'll buy a console for the exclusives that I can't experience elsewhere. Having solid AAA content that's exclusive seems to come from having solid first party development studios.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mywittyname 6y ago
  PS Now is great. It has most (all?) Sony exclusives and they run great on your desktop or laptop. The only issue is that I don't think it is available for OSX/iOS.
shadowgovt 6y ago
Game development is terribly fickle, and it's very much a space where Google is better positioned to sell pickaxes to miners than to try and seek the motherlode itself. TBH, I'd forgotten that they'd started up an in-house game dev team in the first place.
- bootlooped 6y ago
  If for no other reason, having their own first-party studio working on Stadia games demonstrates at least some commitment to the platform. There is a widespread and well founded suspicion that Google will just get bored and shut it down one day. This exacerbates that fear.
hn8788 6y ago
I think the reason this is a big deal is that one of the selling points of Stadia was that "cloud gaming" would enable things that consoles and PCs didn't, like huge persistent worlds with a ton a players in a single area. With no first party support, Stadia is just going to be a way to stream ports of games designed for consoles and PCs. Imagine if Valve released the Index, then announced that they aren't making VR games any more. That's basically what Google is doing by saying it isn't worth it to develop games specifically for Stadia.
- alach11 6y ago
  To me this pivot makes a lot more sense. They’re sticking to their core competency. Gaming as a service, without a dedicated device or powerful machine, already has big appeal. If they nail that, they can always try some first party offerings to push the boundaries.
  - bentcorner 6y ago
    I don't know about that. Google has even less skin in the game now, with a game studio you could be convinced they were in it for the long haul, but now they can pull the plug almost effortlessly. IMO the single business decision that doomed it from the start was the fact that you had to buy Stadia game to play on Stadia. Nothing from Steam/Epic/Ubisoft, and no cross-play. I would not at all be surprised to hear within a year that they stop taking new subscribers, with a sunset a year after that.
- ketzo 6y ago
  That's a pretty interesting thought, I hadn't at all considered the "cloud native game" angle. Based purely on my own experience with games, I tend to think that for the best results, you'd need a really good game studio to learn how to make a cloud game; I'm not sure you want a really good cloud company to learn how to make a game. But it's still a really good point. Was the Stadia studio explicitly for these kind of cloud-gaming-enabled games?
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
A12-B 6y ago
When google tries to make a product that is new and could go either way, i forgive them for dropping it. You have to make mistakes and some products just don't work. But stadia is different. You could see it was never going to work, the infrastructure is just too wonky. I don't respect them for taking on a project they knew they couldn't do, or for deluding themselves into thinking they could.
- SquareWheel 6y ago
  What do you mean? They're not shutting down Stadia, but two internal game studios.

by ketzo 6y ago

AlotOfReading 6y ago

I agree that they didn't need this in the first place, but this is the venture they started last March [1]. What changed for them in those 10 months that wasn't an obvious trend before? [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/4/21164801/google-stadia-shannon-studstill-playa-vista-studio-sony-santa-monica-god-of-war https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/4/21164801/google-stadia-sha...

JulianMorrison 6y ago
I presume that they came out of the gate with the sensible perspective that if you build it, and there aren't any games on it, the players won't come. My guess is what changed is that the infrastructure is now viable as infrastructure, they don't need to prop it up with their own game releases.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  Likely it’s the other way around and Stadia isn’t doing well enough to think that first party titles released in a few years time will pay development costs or necessarily have a platform to launch on.
- Invictus0 6y ago
  IMO, it would be better to take the Nintendo approach and build out a couple generic games that highlight the best features of the system. Wii tennis and wii bowling ended up being my favorite Wii games.
  - throwaway98249 6y ago
    It seems a generic game to demonstrate new hardware is more difficult than we might assume... anyone for Kinect Sports?
ketzo 6y ago
That... is very interesting. I didn't realize the timeline was that short; I was assuming the game studio had started around the same time Stadia had (multiple years ago). First thought: it's probably pretty hard to start a new game studio during COVID? That article is dated March 4, oof. But yeah, that's weird.

ndesaulniers 6y ago

As a gamer, I'll buy a console for the exclusives that I can't experience elsewhere. Having solid AAA content that's exclusive seems to come from having solid first party development studios.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mywittyname 6y ago
PS Now is great. It has most (all?) Sony exclusives and they run great on your desktop or laptop. The only issue is that I don't think it is available for OSX/iOS.

shadowgovt 6y ago

Game development is terribly fickle, and it's very much a space where Google is better positioned to sell pickaxes to miners than to try and seek the motherlode itself. TBH, I'd forgotten that they'd started up an in-house game dev team in the first place.

bootlooped 6y ago
If for no other reason, having their own first-party studio working on Stadia games demonstrates at least some commitment to the platform. There is a widespread and well founded suspicion that Google will just get bored and shut it down one day. This exacerbates that fear.

hn8788 6y ago

I think the reason this is a big deal is that one of the selling points of Stadia was that "cloud gaming" would enable things that consoles and PCs didn't, like huge persistent worlds with a ton a players in a single area. With no first party support, Stadia is just going to be a way to stream ports of games designed for consoles and PCs. Imagine if Valve released the Index, then announced that they aren't making VR games any more. That's basically what Google is doing by saying it isn't worth it to develop games specifically for Stadia.

alach11 6y ago
To me this pivot makes a lot more sense. They’re sticking to their core competency. Gaming as a service, without a dedicated device or powerful machine, already has big appeal. If they nail that, they can always try some first party offerings to push the boundaries.
- bentcorner 6y ago
  I don't know about that. Google has even less skin in the game now, with a game studio you could be convinced they were in it for the long haul, but now they can pull the plug almost effortlessly. IMO the single business decision that doomed it from the start was the fact that you had to buy Stadia game to play on Stadia. Nothing from Steam/Epic/Ubisoft, and no cross-play. I would not at all be surprised to hear within a year that they stop taking new subscribers, with a sunset a year after that.
ketzo 6y ago
That's a pretty interesting thought, I hadn't at all considered the "cloud native game" angle. Based purely on my own experience with games, I tend to think that for the best results, you'd need a really good game studio to learn how to make a cloud game; I'm not sure you want a really good cloud company to learn how to make a game. But it's still a really good point. Was the Stadia studio explicitly for these kind of cloud-gaming-enabled games?
- meheleventyone 6y ago

A12-B 6y ago

When google tries to make a product that is new and could go either way, i forgive them for dropping it. You have to make mistakes and some products just don't work. But stadia is different. You could see it was never going to work, the infrastructure is just too wonky. I don't respect them for taking on a project they knew they couldn't do, or for deluding themselves into thinking they could.

SquareWheel 6y ago
What do you mean? They're not shutting down Stadia, but two internal game studios.