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Unlike other cloud gaming services like Geforce Now and xCloud , Stadia chose to use a platform which had very few existing native games i.e Linux. So it was in

Unlike other cloud gaming services like Geforce Now and xCloud , Stadia chose to use a platform which had very few existing native games i.e Linux. So it was in effect like the launch of a new console, since developers had to port their game to the new platform . But developers didn't have much of an incentive to since there weren't many users on Stadia. And users didn't have much of an incentive to use Stadia, since there were few games and their friends were on other platforms. It's a classic chicken and egg scenario.

ruph123 5y ago
The biggest difference (and problem for Stadia) was that you have to buy Stadia games as “Stadia games”. You cannot transfer them out, they are locked into a platform run by a company which is famous for shutting services down rather often. Why would anyone choose Stadia then? The nice thing about Geforce Now is that you can just run your already bought games on it. Just connect your account to Steam/Epic and you are good to go. You are just renting their hardware essentially.
- darkwizard42 5y ago
  This is truly the most baffling thing. Google could have truly just built a very tight end-to-end cloud hosted "streaming" product that would have leveraged all their Cloud infra to help you play YOUR games... just on any device through their UI. Pay a small hourly or monthly rate (think spot rate for cloud GPUs) and there... you have a business. Other people have done it sure and maybe that is why Stadia tried to go even bigger, but if they just launched a simple product like that I think it would have been a big hit (and truly hit the market of people who want to play the latest games at full settings but don't have the hardware to do so)
  - EveYoung 5y ago
    Is renting out data centre GPUs for cloud gaming currently financially feasible? Considering how much GCP charges for GPUs, I would be surprised if they would be able to offer it at an atractive price (~$10/month). Other providers' services look quite experimental and not ready for mass adoption as well.
    - darkwizard42 5y ago
      It used to be as low as $0.10/hour on AWS for spot rates and of course GCP might not give it out at that rate but it certainly suggests there is some room here. 100 hours of gaming a month is a sizable amount of playtime (if you aren't a hardcore gamer, which arguably a cloud -> streaming gaming option is not going to appeal to anyway)
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  > you have to buy Stadia games as “Stadia games”. You cannot transfer them out, they are locked into a platform That part is just like any console.
syntaxing 5y ago
I was under the impression a good chunk of modern games work on Linux nowadays with proton. Or is there issues having a middle software like proton for good latency?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Steltek 5y ago
  I'm not a huge gamer anymore but I often use Proton over native Linux. It's such a huge difference from the Wine days.
- dijit 5y ago
  A lot of the reason why Ubisoft games in particular work so well in Proton -now- is because there are internal ports to Linux of many new games. This does cause a lot of the "window-isms" to get removed. Source: used to work there, and on a project which was ported to Stadia.
- chevill 5y ago
  Proton is really good compared to earlier attempts to game on Linux. However we still have a long way to go. The claim is that like 75% of Windows games are rated "gold" or higher for support using proton. IMO the standard for "gold" and even "platinum" is frequently a lot lower than it should be. There are some games that work perfectly, but IMO even if you stick to gold/platinum rated games there's still a >50% chance you're going to run into some kind of annoying bug or jankiness. It wasn't good enough for me so I switched back even though I'd really rather stop using Windows on any of my systems.
- robotnikman 5y ago
  Apparently the developers had to make it specifically compatible with an in house distro of linux used by Stadia. Which is kinda stupid, since it means that games released on Stadia which would have otherwise been natively usable on Linux systems, are not.
  - 5y ago
durovo 5y ago
Honestly, Stadia would have worked out fine had they started it with a game pass model. Pay a monthly fee and get a library of games to play. They could have later allowed people to buy games 'forever' as well.
- denimnerd42 5y ago
  that's how it works
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    It is not. There are some free games you can claim while a subscriber, but they are nothing you'd want to play. Games are purchased at full retail (or more) from their storefront.
    - camel_Snake 5y ago
      I dunno about that. Some 'free' Stadia pro games you can claim today are: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA Resident Evil 7 Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Journey to the Savage Planet They're not all small indie games (though many of them are).
swiley 5y ago
Meh, Most game engines have Linux support, devs just don't bother testing on it so they don't release builds for it.

ruph123 5y ago

The biggest difference (and problem for Stadia) was that you have to buy Stadia games as “Stadia games”. You cannot transfer them out, they are locked into a platform run by a company which is famous for shutting services down rather often. Why would anyone choose Stadia then? The nice thing about Geforce Now is that you can just run your already bought games on it. Just connect your account to Steam/Epic and you are good to go. You are just renting their hardware essentially.

darkwizard42 5y ago
This is truly the most baffling thing. Google could have truly just built a very tight end-to-end cloud hosted "streaming" product that would have leveraged all their Cloud infra to help you play YOUR games... just on any device through their UI. Pay a small hourly or monthly rate (think spot rate for cloud GPUs) and there... you have a business. Other people have done it sure and maybe that is why Stadia tried to go even bigger, but if they just launched a simple product like that I think it would have been a big hit (and truly hit the market of people who want to play the latest games at full settings but don't have the hardware to do so)
- EveYoung 5y ago
  Is renting out data centre GPUs for cloud gaming currently financially feasible? Considering how much GCP charges for GPUs, I would be surprised if they would be able to offer it at an atractive price (~$10/month). Other providers' services look quite experimental and not ready for mass adoption as well.
  - darkwizard42 5y ago
    It used to be as low as $0.10/hour on AWS for spot rates and of course GCP might not give it out at that rate but it certainly suggests there is some room here. 100 hours of gaming a month is a sizable amount of playtime (if you aren't a hardcore gamer, which arguably a cloud -> streaming gaming option is not going to appeal to anyway)
benhurmarcel 5y ago
> you have to buy Stadia games as “Stadia games”. You cannot transfer them out, they are locked into a platform That part is just like any console.

syntaxing 5y ago

I was under the impression a good chunk of modern games work on Linux nowadays with proton. Or is there issues having a middle software like proton for good latency?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Steltek 5y ago
I'm not a huge gamer anymore but I often use Proton over native Linux. It's such a huge difference from the Wine days.
dijit 5y ago
A lot of the reason why Ubisoft games in particular work so well in Proton -now- is because there are internal ports to Linux of many new games. This does cause a lot of the "window-isms" to get removed. Source: used to work there, and on a project which was ported to Stadia.
chevill 5y ago
Proton is really good compared to earlier attempts to game on Linux. However we still have a long way to go. The claim is that like 75% of Windows games are rated "gold" or higher for support using proton. IMO the standard for "gold" and even "platinum" is frequently a lot lower than it should be. There are some games that work perfectly, but IMO even if you stick to gold/platinum rated games there's still a >50% chance you're going to run into some kind of annoying bug or jankiness. It wasn't good enough for me so I switched back even though I'd really rather stop using Windows on any of my systems.
robotnikman 5y ago
Apparently the developers had to make it specifically compatible with an in house distro of linux used by Stadia. Which is kinda stupid, since it means that games released on Stadia which would have otherwise been natively usable on Linux systems, are not.
- 5y ago

durovo 5y ago

Honestly, Stadia would have worked out fine had they started it with a game pass model. Pay a monthly fee and get a library of games to play. They could have later allowed people to buy games 'forever' as well.

denimnerd42 5y ago
that's how it works
- dougmwne 5y ago
  It is not. There are some free games you can claim while a subscriber, but they are nothing you'd want to play. Games are purchased at full retail (or more) from their storefront.
  - camel_Snake 5y ago
    I dunno about that. Some 'free' Stadia pro games you can claim today are: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA Resident Evil 7 Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Journey to the Savage Planet They're not all small indie games (though many of them are).

swiley 5y ago

Meh, Most game engines have Linux support, devs just don't bother testing on it so they don't release builds for it.