4 ms·

The problem wasn't trust at all. Nobody in the gaming industry trusts anyone. Customers don't trust developers, see "never pre-order anything." Developers do

by urthor 4y ago

The problem wasn't trust at all. Nobody in the gaming industry trusts anyone. Customers don't trust developers, see "never pre-order anything." Developers don't trust publishers, "executive meddling via focus groups." Publishers don't trust each other. The difference is publishers have lawyers so they write legal contracts to fix that. Google, Did, Not, Produce, The, Goods. Full-stop. Their service was light on content and offered terrible value for money.

chii 4y ago
stadia would've worked if it didn't charge per title. A subscription, which allowed you access to the entire library of games in stadia, akin to netflix, is a compelling product.
- inerte 4y ago
  I think I will say this for the 3rd time in HN and I look like a shill, but Xbox Cloud is awesome. It’s exactly what you described!
  - hedora 4y ago
    Yeah; but I can’t be bothered to log into my xbox. It invariably takes me over 45 minutes of reading forum posts and poking around obscure microsoft sites. It would probably be better if I plugged it in more often, but it pisses me off so much I usually stick it back in a box once it accepts my password.
    - solardev 4y ago
      You don't need an Xbox for the subscription. You can play it on a PC or stream games to a browser. It's like Stadia, just better.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  Games require a lot of upfront investment. Games are not like music where top hits are routinely created in a day or two. Nobody is making a game on the off-chance that they will collect enough pennies from plays on a streaming service. Anybody making a game, be it indie or AAA, is investing years and $$$, and they need that big payday on release. Even Netflix mostly funds their own content. A “Netflix for games” would involve Google funding exclusive games to be made for their platform.
  - chii 4y ago
    you're just saying that they couldn't have done a subscription gaming service because the business model doesn't work. Well, the current situation is that stadia is defunct, because their business model doesn't work! I'm saying that i reckon an alternative business model such as a subscription service for games would've worked, but require much more up front investments. Epic games have managed to attract a large dev following using incentives like grants (in exchange for exclusivity). Google's pockets is much deeper than Epic; obviously, google isn't really ready to invest in the stadia platform or make it succeed commercially - it's likely no more than a technology demonstration, something that someone at google intended to further their careers (like all things cancelled at google). The branding of google services is highly tarnished by now. If you are a business, you will not purchase any google services, short of the monopoly on advertising.
  - noncoml 4y ago
    MS does it on Xbox. Not just released games, but they have a decent collection.
  - arduinomancer 4y ago
    What do you mean, it already exists? Xbox Gamepass or Playstation Plus Or 3rd party via Amazon Luna
  - xxs 4y ago
    >Google funding exclusive games to be made for their platform. Stadia had their own first party games that they canceled rather early - Feb 2021, year and two/three months after launch. The writing was on the wall. Stadia was a failure through and through, and they knew it.
thiht 4y ago
> see "never pre-order anything." I preorder things all the time and have never been disappointed. Granted I specifically avoided some preorders (Cyberpunk comes to mind) because it was obvious it was gonna be a shot show at launch
mort96 4y ago
I trust Steam or the PlayStation store that if I buy a game for $80, I can play that game for many, many years. I wouldn't trust a Google product with the same. Stadia was a bad product, but a lack of trust (combined with a business model which requires trust) is certainly part of it.
int_19h 4y ago
> Customers don't trust developers, see "never pre-order anything." I've been buying games on Steam since 2006. The "never pre-order anything" take is overblown, IMO. Or rather, it is the default when you don't have a specific list of brands you trust to deliver (i.e. it's the attitude that a new gamer should start with) - but such list does accumulate over the years. So, no. Trust does matter, and Google lacks trust specifically on the matter of not abandoning things.

by urthor 4y ago

chii 4y ago

stadia would've worked if it didn't charge per title. A subscription, which allowed you access to the entire library of games in stadia, akin to netflix, is a compelling product.

inerte 4y ago
I think I will say this for the 3rd time in HN and I look like a shill, but Xbox Cloud is awesome. It’s exactly what you described!
- hedora 4y ago
  Yeah; but I can’t be bothered to log into my xbox. It invariably takes me over 45 minutes of reading forum posts and poking around obscure microsoft sites. It would probably be better if I plugged it in more often, but it pisses me off so much I usually stick it back in a box once it accepts my password.
  - solardev 4y ago
    You don't need an Xbox for the subscription. You can play it on a PC or stream games to a browser. It's like Stadia, just better.
zarzavat 4y ago
Games require a lot of upfront investment. Games are not like music where top hits are routinely created in a day or two. Nobody is making a game on the off-chance that they will collect enough pennies from plays on a streaming service. Anybody making a game, be it indie or AAA, is investing years and $$$, and they need that big payday on release. Even Netflix mostly funds their own content. A “Netflix for games” would involve Google funding exclusive games to be made for their platform.
- chii 4y ago
  you're just saying that they couldn't have done a subscription gaming service because the business model doesn't work. Well, the current situation is that stadia is defunct, because their business model doesn't work! I'm saying that i reckon an alternative business model such as a subscription service for games would've worked, but require much more up front investments. Epic games have managed to attract a large dev following using incentives like grants (in exchange for exclusivity). Google's pockets is much deeper than Epic; obviously, google isn't really ready to invest in the stadia platform or make it succeed commercially - it's likely no more than a technology demonstration, something that someone at google intended to further their careers (like all things cancelled at google). The branding of google services is highly tarnished by now. If you are a business, you will not purchase any google services, short of the monopoly on advertising.
- noncoml 4y ago
  MS does it on Xbox. Not just released games, but they have a decent collection.
- arduinomancer 4y ago
  What do you mean, it already exists? Xbox Gamepass or Playstation Plus Or 3rd party via Amazon Luna
- xxs 4y ago
  >Google funding exclusive games to be made for their platform. Stadia had their own first party games that they canceled rather early - Feb 2021, year and two/three months after launch. The writing was on the wall. Stadia was a failure through and through, and they knew it.

thiht 4y ago

> see "never pre-order anything." I preorder things all the time and have never been disappointed. Granted I specifically avoided some preorders (Cyberpunk comes to mind) because it was obvious it was gonna be a shot show at launch

mort96 4y ago

I trust Steam or the PlayStation store that if I buy a game for $80, I can play that game for many, many years. I wouldn't trust a Google product with the same. Stadia was a bad product, but a lack of trust (combined with a business model which requires trust) is certainly part of it.

int_19h 4y ago

> Customers don't trust developers, see "never pre-order anything." I've been buying games on Steam since 2006. The "never pre-order anything" take is overblown, IMO. Or rather, it is the default when you don't have a specific list of brands you trust to deliver (i.e. it's the attitude that a new gamer should start with) - but such list does accumulate over the years. So, no. Trust does matter, and Google lacks trust specifically on the matter of not abandoning things.