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Ubisoft+Bungie Scrambling to Evacuate Players Games from Capsizing Google Stadia

159 points by metadat 4y ago

johnebgd 4y ago
Anyone who pays out of their own pocket to launch anything on a newly introduced google product moving forward is an idiot. Google is going to need to dig deep into their wallets to build an ecosystem in any new market in the future. Then again, Stadia is too early and costing them too much money. More people need fiber internet before it’s practical. Good thing Google killed their fiber internet rollout years ago…
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  The business model made no sense. You don't get a big library of games for free to stream, and you don't get to use existing licenses of games you already own, now you have to double dip the full price of a game to play it on Stadia.
  - danielvaughn 4y ago
    Yep. It's like if Netflix made you buy all of their movies and TV shows.
    - ccouzens 4y ago
      Google and iTunes allow you to "buy" films and TV. I don't think they're as successful as Netflix, but they're not unsuccessful.
      - bobthepanda 4y ago
        A song is $.99 or $1.29, a game is easily $40-60. I don’t think movie purchases at any one retailer drives the kind of numbers Google was hoping to get out of Stadia.
        ccouzens 4y ago
        I meant movies not songs. Eg https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-martian/id1039586890 https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-martian/id1039586890 Which is the same price as some games Eg https://stadia.google.com/game/human-fall-flat-stadia-edition https://stadia.google.com/game/human-fall-flat-stadia-editio... That's the game I brought when I dipped my toe in to try it out (although I remember it being cheaper than that). > I don’t think movie purchases at any one retailer drives the kind of numbers Google was hoping to get out of Stadia. I have no idea, but it's notable that movies don't need porting to a platform, but each game will need at least a little work.
        bobthepanda 4y ago
        I think I’ve seen a number thrown around where Google doesn’t like businesses making less than a billion in revenue. According to this, 2021 electronic sales of movies totaled $737M. https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1644476313 https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=...
      - skykooler 4y ago
        Amazon Prime does that as well.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Yes, iTunes introduced buying films and TV in 2003 when the state of the art was an iPod. Very few people still do it and Apple is all in on streaming and has many affordances to seamlessly support first and third party streaming services through various APIs like supporting TV Anywhere globally, supporting third party apps in the Tv app, etc.
      - acdha 4y ago
        The difference is that you aren’t paying a monthly fee, have much greater selection, can download the file to play later (without the Netflix problem of content disappearing due to whatever contract terms are secretly in place), and using Movies Anywhere your purchases are synced to other stores. There’s still a lot of room for improvement there but it seems like you need to pick one model or another, not both. This is not a very good fit for games, however: everyone sells and watches the same movie and almost nobody watches the same ones for anywhere near as long as gamers play them.
  - x0x0 4y ago
    It made sense for me -- I own no gaming devices, and my only computers are macbook pros with shoddy graphic cards. There are occasionally games I'd love to play, but I don't want to pay $500+ (ps-latest, xbox X) or $2.5k (computer with $1k graphics card). Unfortunately, this outcome was easily predicable to anyone who follows google.
    - Godel_unicode 4y ago
      Fortunately the companies that understand gaming have similar-but-better solutions that are still perfectly viable. Assassins Creed games on xcloud have been a delight.
- krzyk 4y ago
  Fiber is not needed. 50mbps is enough for 1080, 60fps. You just need lowish latency, so no radio, no wifi. Worked fine for me on GFN, Paperspace and Shadow.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    No wifi damns the premise completely, wifi is so ubiquitous that it has become synonymous with internet access itself. Cafes and hotels advertise having "wifi", not "internet access". College libraries label ethernet cables as "wifi cables" so that young students understand their purpose. The average laptop on the market doesn't have an ethernet port, nor do any of the low power tablets/phones on which Stadia might otherwise make sense.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      I mean, the whole thing clearly didn't work out, but not having a built-in ethernet port is easily solved with a $10 adapter.
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        Most people would have to buy the cable too, and either run it through their walls, under doors, or restrict their play to whatever room their router is in.
        pdimitar 4y ago
        Normal users are not that helpless so as to give up when faced with this problem. I maintain contact with several non-tech people. When they realized that e.g. Valorant will work better with a cable they very quickly deciphered the USB-to-Ethernet adapters market and asked a father or a friend to run their cable properly. Took each of them 2-3 days and they're much happier casual gamers now. Where there is a need, a way is found. When the need arises, people learn. Seen it happen several times.
- lnanek2 4y ago
  I bought the founder's edition Stadia hardware and I'm thrilled with what I got out of it, personally. I got a free game system for years since they are giving everyone refunds. Played several AAA games I had no access to otherwise. Still going to have the, now free, Chromecast Ultra 4k with ethernet cable power adapter afterward too. It works fine even if I don't pair Stadia controllers with it. This Ubisoft initiative to transfer licenses to PC is actually worthless to me since my PC doesn't have a GPU capable of playing games anyway and I have no intention to buy one.
  - wbobeirne 4y ago
    Their efforts should also allow you to transition to GeForce Now or other cloud gaming providers, so it's definitely not worthless.
  - BakeInBeens 4y ago
    I'll echo your sentiment. I got to game free for nearly three years and I get to keep any hardware I purchased to do so. I personally grew tired of Stadia due to the lack of public support and negative sentiment any time it was brought up so I'm happy to be getting my money back (especially seeing as some games are providing second licenses on top of refunds) which can go towards a GPU while being given time to finish any games in the coming months.
  - puffoflogic 4y ago
    > they are giving everyone refunds Not the developers who poured millions into porting games.
    - danhor 4y ago
      Few developers ported to Stadia out of good will, Google paid very handsomely up front.
      - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
        Yeah, this. My previous company got paid a lot of money to bring our titles to Stadia. And it wasn't worth it, as Google kept changing APIs and interfaces. And then nobody played the game. It didn't happen again, and basically everyone in this industry has been using Stadia as a punchline for years.
- dmix 4y ago
  Stadia is not too early? Cloud gaming is getting mature now. I’ve heard people say there is lag but apparently the platforms have optimized them heavily in recent years and I’ve personally never experienced any problems after hundreds of hours on both Xbox cloud and Paperspace, with maxed out graphics. 100-250mbps connection is probably more than enough. And those connections are becoming the standard in the western world.
  - monlockandkey 4y ago
    You only need 25mbps? Why does everyone think you need gigabit. It is not the size of the pipe, rather the latency to the nearest datacenter.
    - Godel_unicode 4y ago
      One of the things hiding behind the gigabit recommendation is that there are lots of terrible ISP decisions that might have been made upstream of you, but that symmetric gigabit providers haven’t made by and large. It’s not actually that you need gigabit, but rather that you need an ISP good enough to offer it. Back in the day, FiOS offering gigabit at your address was a handy shorthand for being on a more modern ONT, not using DSL to deliver it to your apartment over crappy copper, etc.
- monlockandkey 4y ago
  I played Stadia over 20mbps Wifi. It was flawless. I finished Tomb raider 1&2 and Metro exodus. Completely forgot I was streaming a game to my laptop after the first 5 minutes. Google killed fiber rollout because they were forced out by other ISPs... Issue with Stadia was Linux. Linux choked the entire platform. You had to get developers to port their game. If they used Windows they would have a solid platform with thousands of games. Instead they are at the mercy of "bribing" devs to port their game to Stadia.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    If Linux was the issue, how do you explain the steam deck’s library of games? This is really simple: people no longer trust Google.
    - monlockandkey 4y ago
      Proton is the explanation to the steam deck library. Stadia came out 2019 and probably has been in development for a few years prior. Proton is relatively a recent thing. The issue is in a low latency environment, translating directx to vulkan may have overhead.
      - SXX 4y ago
        Proton is just pre-built Wine with Valve patches. Wine existed for years and DXVK wasn't Valves' own project. They just sponsored some open source project and driver improvements and integrated it into Steam. I seriously doubt that if you count every single developer that Valve hired to work on it as well as sponsored 3rd-party developers there likely gonna be 25-30 people or less. I pretty sure that more people worked on Stadia within Google than all people working in Valve on all of their projects.
    - lmm 4y ago
      Valve put a whole lot of work over several years into making that possible (including the failed Steam Machines).
    - 4y ago
- dmitriid 4y ago
  It's not too early. They just had exactly zero proposition and understanding of the market. It was early when OnLive started the whole thing. Now? It's already a market. One that Google doesn't understand.
- lovehashbrowns 4y ago
  I played OnLive like what, 10+ years ago on a trash AT&T DSL connection and it was a great experience. Stadia was not too early. Google is just stupid.
  - cafed00d 4y ago
    Yup, I played the entire "Last of Us" campaign on Sony's PS Now service in 2015 on cheap Comcast internet on my 2014 MacBook Pro. Display was great and the streaming quality was great! Don't remember if it was 4k; very very unlikely. Perhaps it was 1080p or 720p. Anyways great experience! Never tried Stadia; _even though_ I got their controller & chrome cast 4k for free in some promo offer! It was just too much work to end up paying full price for games I already owned! Such a bad bad product. The most greatest of technology/engineering! And yet, such a waste! Google really has fallen in my eyes. As a software engineer, I would be so scared to go there to work on something new.
    - ansible 4y ago
      > Never tried Stadia; _even though_ I got their controller & chrome cast 4k for free in some promo offer! As I understand it, the Stadia controller can be used like a wired USB game controller on a PC.
      - cafed00d 4y ago
        Yup, I did use it like that. You found a flaw: I shouldn’t have said “never”. I actually did try it for maybe like 5mins and got felt meh about it. It’s a nice enough controller tbh. It’s just so inconvenient compared to my wireless dualsense controller. Or any other controller: Xbox, dualshock4, steam, backbone controller connected to an iPhone etc. The stadia controller is really nice in the sense that it has Google assistant built in yadda yadda. Imagine if they made that configurable to control Cortana on windows. Or some form or voice control on windows. It would make using my living room PC that much easier.
- deleted 4y ago
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TillE 4y ago
Love the colorful headline which actually helps illustrate the situation in a relatively terse manner. Don't see that very often.
- bovermyer 4y ago
  Writing good titles is pretty difficult. There's lots of SEO advice on title crafting, but not a lot of advice on writing titles with standalone narrative value, since that doesn't generate ad revenue.
noasaservice 4y ago
I never knew any real human that thought Stadia was anywhere near a good idea, or even used it. All of us techies around me thought this was yet another dillettanting around by Google that they were going to dismiss any day now. And we were not wrong.
- nicd 4y ago
  As a digital nomad, Stadia was far more portable than a traditional game console or PC, and I bought and played through a few full-length games. (I did understand that it was likely to get canned, though.) So- there's at least one real human out there! I suspect there are dozens of us!
  - throwaway5959 4y ago
    What do you think about Xbox Cloud Streaming?
    - aledalgrande 4y ago
      Right now Geforce Now has better offering. Connect it to your Steam account and you can play some of the titles.
      - nicd 4y ago
        When I tried Geforce Now about a year ago, I preferred Stadia (useable on Chromecast, more seamless setup, good latency). I'll certainly concede that Geforce Now is better positioned going forward though!
    - karmajunkie 4y ago
      I've tried it but it was a dramatically inferior experience to GFN or stadia. Latency was unbelievably bad. I could put it up side-by-side with Stadia and the xbox, and the latter two had just a hair difference between them responding to controller presses. XCS, on the other hand, had seconds between a button press and watching my on-screen avatar jump. Maybe its gotten better since then, the last time I gave it a try was back in the spring. But I was far from impressed.
a1371 4y ago
It's funny because Ubisoft+ was just announced, and you could play all Ubisoft titles for a monthly fee. Sounded like a huge effort. I wonder if the sudden cut is part of Google preparing for a recession.
- cronix 4y ago
  I would think gaming would go up during a recession. Gaming can be very cheap entertainment once the hardware is purchased. Like for the price of 4 movies in the theater at $15 a pop that might be 6 or 7 hours long in total, I can play a game for 40x that long over months for the same price and not leave my house.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    The stock market is not the economy. There is no recession. Unemployment is super low. A recession is what we say in 2008.
    - seabrookmx 4y ago
      It's fair to say we're in a unique/different position than 2008. But the definition of a recession has always been two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, and that has in fact happened.
      - surfpel 4y ago
        That is one specific definition of a recession. It's funny to me because if we're resorting to semantics and nitpicking to prove whether or not there is a massive and broadly defined societal issue going on, then it probably isn't really happening... at least not enough to write home about.
        maxfurman 4y ago
        Recessions can move very slowly. Many of the more obvious effects of the 2008 crisis didn't happen until 2009 as the contagion spread outward. It is possible that the recession has already started even if the worst economic effects are yet to come. At the very least we are in the downward part of the cycle, and we have yet to see the next bottom.
returnInfinity 4y ago
oh wow, if google does not create ways to export save game data, then destiny 2 players will lose thousands of hours of grind and possibly season exclusive items which they can never get back.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  Destiny 2 has "Cross Save" (characters playable on any platform) if you enable it, so there should be no issues.
- ccouzens 4y ago
  You can use Google takeout to export your game saves. I've used it to export my cyberpunk 2077 save but I haven't yet tried importing it into the Steam version. I would have thought that because destiny 2 is an online game, the save files would be kept on bungie's servers. Perhaps the issue with the game is more that players need to link their identity to their account on a second platform.
  - cvs268 4y ago
    > I've used it to export my cyberpunk 2077 save but I haven't yet tried importing it into the Steam version. He he. :-) Reminds me of the folks who ran daily backups, but never tried to restore until they had an actual disaster (and discovered that their backups were corrupt). Hopefully, these Stadia-exported game saves can be used by other platforms like Steam.
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michaelmior 4y ago
For me, Stadia was by far the best gaming experience I've had in recent history. I'm a very casual gamer so I don't really want to invest a lot in hardware or buying games. Stadia made it very cheap for me to easily jump into a game session whenever I wanted with minimal upfront investment. I'm most disappointed to see Ubisoft+ on Stadia gone since several franchises I like were Ubisoft and now I have no easy way to play. I'll probably check out GeForce NOW at some point, but I currently don't have a way to use my only controller (Stadia) with my TV.
- pdimitar 4y ago
  If you don't care about graphic performances or photo-realistic quality then I can't recommend the Switch enough. Some find find the initial 300-400 EUR investment a bit steep but after you go through that they have sales all the time and you can easily amass a collection of 50+ games for a maximum of 200 EUR. I did that over the course of 2 years -- less than 10 EUR a month. Now I can't decide which game to play because I have so many, lol.
  - wielebny 4y ago
    There are several gems - my family easily spent 1000+ hours on Wittcher 3, Zelda, Hades or Animal Crossing - but most of the games are just too bland. I'm a fan of cloud gaming and have used both Stadia and Xbox Cloud Gaming. It appeals to me, as I don't have to invest in a gaming rig and can play on almost everything.
    - DrSiemer 4y ago
      As a game collector and conservationist, I can only hope cloud gaming never becomes the norm.
  - michaelmior 4y ago
    I really don't care that much about graphics. Sure, I don't want something that looks awful, but I care more about just taking a break and having a good time. The Switch is definitely something I've considered, but the cost relative to how much I would expect to use it makes it a more difficult choice for me than it was to pick up a Stadia controller.
pjmlp 4y ago
It was a very good way to prove everyone right in not trusting any kind of Google's products. Even Android, only succeeded because OEMs also like free beer instead of paying licenses and the day Android stops being, they can anyway carry on with the last AOSP code drop.
dougmwne 4y ago
This is a great insight into why Google completely failed to compete with established game industry titans. They don’t get the industry, don’t get the customers, don’t get their partners. Doing a rug pull on another company’s monthly active users pretty much guarantees that no game publisher will ever take them seriously ever again. That bridge is torched.
- Gibbon1 4y ago
  Reminds me of Intel. Back in the day they had a huge contract with Panasonic to supply flash chips. And then they decided to renege on it. Panasonic put Intel on their banned suppliers list.
  - atdrummond 4y ago
    How does that work when I can still get a new Intel-based Durabook and AFAIK that line has been ongoing without any discontinuity.
    - TkTech 4y ago
      Are you maybe thinking of the Panasonic (Japan) Toughbook? I don't think the Durabook (Taiwan) brand has anything to do with Panasonic?
      - Gibbon1 4y ago
        Also that was 20 years ago and I could misremember. Or the two might have made up.
  - lemper 4y ago
    they still sell toughbooks with intel chips [1] currently. can you confirm the validity of your statement? [1] https://business.panasonic.nl/mobile-solutions/rugged-laptops-for-harsh-environments https://business.panasonic.nl/mobile-solutions/rugged-laptop...
- thrillgore 4y ago
twawaaay 4y ago
I believe Google is completely blind that these kinds of moves cause people to not want to invest themselves in their new products. Why would I want to pioneer using new something if there is good likelihood it will get unceremoniously killed with very little reason / advance notice.
- kramerger 4y ago
  It has been said that Stadia failed because not enough gamers joined, as many did not trust Google. So this has already happened, and will only get worse for Google - unless they start putting some soul into these projects
juunpp 4y ago
"It had also not been shared with longtime Stadia partners, big devs like Ubisoft and Bungie...But Google didn’t even tell their own Stadia team until the day it was announced, so really, no one knew at all." Hard to tell if this is incredible mismanagement or sheer arrogance.
- miohtama 4y ago
  Is there more clearer way to send a message “Working with Google does not pay off?” Google can roll in its arrogance as long as there is no credible search engine competitor or it is chopped to pieces with competion laws.
  - LadyCailin 4y ago
    Google search results have consistently been getting worse over the last several years. Unfortunately, bing and others aren’t really improving either, but if things continue this way, eventually they will likely overtake Google by nature of being the least bad option.
- justapassenger 4y ago
  It’s pragmatism. News like that will leak. If it leaks, it’s same as no one getting a heads up.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  Hard to tell if this is incredible mismanagement or sheer arrogance. Yes.
  - rodgerd 4y ago
    Given that Google thought that their gaming division should be headed by a guy who has been booted from multiple gaming companies for completely fucking them up (most recently the XBox One and PS3 launches), both.
    - juunpp 4y ago
SilverBirch 4y ago
I think there's probably a sentiment of "Oh Google is really messing Ubisoft and Bungie around". But I think the truth is probably slightly different. Google was offering something different, and I don't think any game studio was jumping at the chance to get on Stadia - especially given Google's reputation. So any work going on to support and develop for Stadia was almost certainly backed by Google money, not Ubisoft money. So yes, it's sad that engineering effort was wasted (but let's be real, 90% of engineering effort is wasted), in reality, it probably isn't a big hit for the game studios. This isn't a case of Google luring naive game companies into developing for Stadia and then pulling the plug, this is a matter of big spending Google trying to spend its way into a new industry and failing, probably it was quite lucrative all round. Yes, they'll have to do a bit of work to save face with their customers, but all-in-all this was probably free money for them.
- Kye 4y ago
  Microsoft did the same with Xbox, but they stuck with it through all the years the division was a huge money sink. Google could have taken a lesson from that: even Microsoft's existing presence in gaming with Windows, DirectX, and a long list of well-respected development studios wasn't enough for a quick entry.
  - nazgulsenpai 4y ago
    Yeah, shortly after Xbox 360 launch Microsoft had to repair/replace something like 20% of them because the red ring of death, and their internal estimate at that time was around $1.1 billion. I don't Xbox and am not a Microsoft apologist but they have managed to ride this Xbox thing out. Unlike Games for Windows Live :)
    - gbasp 4y ago
    - yazzku 4y ago
      Yeah, I hate M$ with passion too, but if I remember correctly, the Xbox lead had a hard time even selling the idea of a console to the VPs back at the time, who were all business and zero gaming. And yet they managed to pull it off with sheer blood and balls. Google, with its vast surveillance/ad network raining billions on them, can't even put two legos together.
predatorian3 4y ago
If Bungie and Ubisoft would just allow Proton capability, they'd get money back.
AJRF 4y ago
From the outside looking in with this move Google have alienated Ubisoft, Bungie & Rockstar from any and all future product launches. Google seems to have become a mediocre company over the past ~5 years.
- hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  I'd describe Ubisoft, Bungie and Rockstar mediocre companies as well. Their best games were made decades ago. The only thing that's improved is graphical fidelity.
drexlspivey 4y ago
I am happy that Stadia is gone, maybe now all the stadia exclusives can come to Geforce Now. Presumably not much development work is needed to port your game to GN, it just needs to run on Steam. Stadia business model was flawed from the start, people want to own the games they buy, they might buy a new expensive computer in the future and don’t want to pay for the game twice. With Geforce Now you play the games that are already in your steam library.
- Matl 4y ago
  > I am happy that Stadia is gone Yes, everything that I don't personally like shouldn't exist because there's no way it could work for someone if it doesn't work for me, right? I am not a fan of cloud gaming, but Stadia as a service wasn't bad. As for owning games, you don't own your Steam games either, unfortunately. As glad as I am for Valve supporting Linux, the real practical difference between Steam and Stadia is that Valve has proven it will keep it around. But in terms of ownership there's hardly a difference.
  - athorax 4y ago
    Hey now, let's leave the strawmen in the fields shall we?
  - smileybarry 4y ago
    > As for owning games, you don't own your Steam games either, unfortunately. But I can keep my Steam games’ executables and run them without Steam, either as-is (many games are DRM-free) or with a fake Steam API DLL. Come this January, all Stadia games will be lost.
    - karmajunkie 4y ago
      Stadia did two things for me that were invaluable: * It was my primary console for about 18 months until I finally got a new xbox. worked almost flawlessly until the last few months, when Google's divestment in the platform began to show up in its performance. * It eliminated cheaters, which were a huge problem in the PC version of the game I play the most (Destiny 2). I'm bummed they're shutting down Stadia though its not world-ending for me. But I'm really not sure GFN or similar is going to work well for me on that second point, and I don't even own a PC to play those games natively. I do have an xbox now to play on, but I still do log into Stadia when i'm traveling or in another room and don't feel like coaxing my wife off the tv in the living room.
syspec 4y ago
Bit of an odd title, makes it sound like they're in in a war zone, and physically airlifting players out of Stadia
lots2learn 4y ago
Several months ago, many outlets were reporting Google was shifting focus with Stadia, turning it into a white label product where other companies could create their own cloud gaming services. I think this might be a more viable business model for them. Imagine a market where game companies like Rockstar, Capcom, Ubisoft etc have their own streaming game service products just like Netflix, Disney, Paramount, etc. You pay a monthly fee to access that studio's library. We may have seen the end of Stadia the retail product, but Stadia the platform will likely live on in another form. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-stadia-shifts-to-white-label-partnership-model-under-google-stream-brand/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-stadia-shi...

159 points by metadat 4y ago

Anyone who pays out of their own pocket to launch anything on a newly introduced google product moving forward is an idiot. Google is going to need to dig deep into their wallets to build an ecosystem in any new market in the future. Then again, Stadia is too early and costing them too much money. More people need fiber internet before it’s practical. Good thing Google killed their fiber internet rollout years ago…

bobthepanda 4y ago
The business model made no sense. You don't get a big library of games for free to stream, and you don't get to use existing licenses of games you already own, now you have to double dip the full price of a game to play it on Stadia.
- danielvaughn 4y ago
  Yep. It's like if Netflix made you buy all of their movies and TV shows.
  - ccouzens 4y ago
    Google and iTunes allow you to "buy" films and TV. I don't think they're as successful as Netflix, but they're not unsuccessful.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      A song is $.99 or $1.29, a game is easily $40-60. I don’t think movie purchases at any one retailer drives the kind of numbers Google was hoping to get out of Stadia.
      - ccouzens 4y ago
        I meant movies not songs. Eg https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-martian/id1039586890 https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-martian/id1039586890 Which is the same price as some games Eg https://stadia.google.com/game/human-fall-flat-stadia-edition https://stadia.google.com/game/human-fall-flat-stadia-editio... That's the game I brought when I dipped my toe in to try it out (although I remember it being cheaper than that). > I don’t think movie purchases at any one retailer drives the kind of numbers Google was hoping to get out of Stadia. I have no idea, but it's notable that movies don't need porting to a platform, but each game will need at least a little work.
        bobthepanda 4y ago
        I think I’ve seen a number thrown around where Google doesn’t like businesses making less than a billion in revenue. According to this, 2021 electronic sales of movies totaled $737M. https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1644476313 https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=...
    - skykooler 4y ago
      Amazon Prime does that as well.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Yes, iTunes introduced buying films and TV in 2003 when the state of the art was an iPod. Very few people still do it and Apple is all in on streaming and has many affordances to seamlessly support first and third party streaming services through various APIs like supporting TV Anywhere globally, supporting third party apps in the Tv app, etc.
    - acdha 4y ago
      The difference is that you aren’t paying a monthly fee, have much greater selection, can download the file to play later (without the Netflix problem of content disappearing due to whatever contract terms are secretly in place), and using Movies Anywhere your purchases are synced to other stores. There’s still a lot of room for improvement there but it seems like you need to pick one model or another, not both. This is not a very good fit for games, however: everyone sells and watches the same movie and almost nobody watches the same ones for anywhere near as long as gamers play them.
- x0x0 4y ago
  It made sense for me -- I own no gaming devices, and my only computers are macbook pros with shoddy graphic cards. There are occasionally games I'd love to play, but I don't want to pay $500+ (ps-latest, xbox X) or $2.5k (computer with $1k graphics card). Unfortunately, this outcome was easily predicable to anyone who follows google.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    Fortunately the companies that understand gaming have similar-but-better solutions that are still perfectly viable. Assassins Creed games on xcloud have been a delight.
krzyk 4y ago
Fiber is not needed. 50mbps is enough for 1080, 60fps. You just need lowish latency, so no radio, no wifi. Worked fine for me on GFN, Paperspace and Shadow.
- deleted 4y ago
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- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  No wifi damns the premise completely, wifi is so ubiquitous that it has become synonymous with internet access itself. Cafes and hotels advertise having "wifi", not "internet access". College libraries label ethernet cables as "wifi cables" so that young students understand their purpose. The average laptop on the market doesn't have an ethernet port, nor do any of the low power tablets/phones on which Stadia might otherwise make sense.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    I mean, the whole thing clearly didn't work out, but not having a built-in ethernet port is easily solved with a $10 adapter.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      Most people would have to buy the cable too, and either run it through their walls, under doors, or restrict their play to whatever room their router is in.
      - pdimitar 4y ago
        Normal users are not that helpless so as to give up when faced with this problem. I maintain contact with several non-tech people. When they realized that e.g. Valorant will work better with a cable they very quickly deciphered the USB-to-Ethernet adapters market and asked a father or a friend to run their cable properly. Took each of them 2-3 days and they're much happier casual gamers now. Where there is a need, a way is found. When the need arises, people learn. Seen it happen several times.
lnanek2 4y ago
I bought the founder's edition Stadia hardware and I'm thrilled with what I got out of it, personally. I got a free game system for years since they are giving everyone refunds. Played several AAA games I had no access to otherwise. Still going to have the, now free, Chromecast Ultra 4k with ethernet cable power adapter afterward too. It works fine even if I don't pair Stadia controllers with it. This Ubisoft initiative to transfer licenses to PC is actually worthless to me since my PC doesn't have a GPU capable of playing games anyway and I have no intention to buy one.
- wbobeirne 4y ago
  Their efforts should also allow you to transition to GeForce Now or other cloud gaming providers, so it's definitely not worthless.
- BakeInBeens 4y ago
  I'll echo your sentiment. I got to game free for nearly three years and I get to keep any hardware I purchased to do so. I personally grew tired of Stadia due to the lack of public support and negative sentiment any time it was brought up so I'm happy to be getting my money back (especially seeing as some games are providing second licenses on top of refunds) which can go towards a GPU while being given time to finish any games in the coming months.
- puffoflogic 4y ago
  > they are giving everyone refunds Not the developers who poured millions into porting games.
  - danhor 4y ago
    Few developers ported to Stadia out of good will, Google paid very handsomely up front.
    - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
      Yeah, this. My previous company got paid a lot of money to bring our titles to Stadia. And it wasn't worth it, as Google kept changing APIs and interfaces. And then nobody played the game. It didn't happen again, and basically everyone in this industry has been using Stadia as a punchline for years.
dmix 4y ago
Stadia is not too early? Cloud gaming is getting mature now. I’ve heard people say there is lag but apparently the platforms have optimized them heavily in recent years and I’ve personally never experienced any problems after hundreds of hours on both Xbox cloud and Paperspace, with maxed out graphics. 100-250mbps connection is probably more than enough. And those connections are becoming the standard in the western world.
- monlockandkey 4y ago
  You only need 25mbps? Why does everyone think you need gigabit. It is not the size of the pipe, rather the latency to the nearest datacenter.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    One of the things hiding behind the gigabit recommendation is that there are lots of terrible ISP decisions that might have been made upstream of you, but that symmetric gigabit providers haven’t made by and large. It’s not actually that you need gigabit, but rather that you need an ISP good enough to offer it. Back in the day, FiOS offering gigabit at your address was a handy shorthand for being on a more modern ONT, not using DSL to deliver it to your apartment over crappy copper, etc.
monlockandkey 4y ago
I played Stadia over 20mbps Wifi. It was flawless. I finished Tomb raider 1&2 and Metro exodus. Completely forgot I was streaming a game to my laptop after the first 5 minutes. Google killed fiber rollout because they were forced out by other ISPs... Issue with Stadia was Linux. Linux choked the entire platform. You had to get developers to port their game. If they used Windows they would have a solid platform with thousands of games. Instead they are at the mercy of "bribing" devs to port their game to Stadia.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  If Linux was the issue, how do you explain the steam deck’s library of games? This is really simple: people no longer trust Google.
  - monlockandkey 4y ago
    Proton is the explanation to the steam deck library. Stadia came out 2019 and probably has been in development for a few years prior. Proton is relatively a recent thing. The issue is in a low latency environment, translating directx to vulkan may have overhead.
    - SXX 4y ago
      Proton is just pre-built Wine with Valve patches. Wine existed for years and DXVK wasn't Valves' own project. They just sponsored some open source project and driver improvements and integrated it into Steam. I seriously doubt that if you count every single developer that Valve hired to work on it as well as sponsored 3rd-party developers there likely gonna be 25-30 people or less. I pretty sure that more people worked on Stadia within Google than all people working in Valve on all of their projects.
  - lmm 4y ago
    Valve put a whole lot of work over several years into making that possible (including the failed Steam Machines).
  - 4y ago
dmitriid 4y ago
It's not too early. They just had exactly zero proposition and understanding of the market. It was early when OnLive started the whole thing. Now? It's already a market. One that Google doesn't understand.
lovehashbrowns 4y ago
I played OnLive like what, 10+ years ago on a trash AT&T DSL connection and it was a great experience. Stadia was not too early. Google is just stupid.
- cafed00d 4y ago
  Yup, I played the entire "Last of Us" campaign on Sony's PS Now service in 2015 on cheap Comcast internet on my 2014 MacBook Pro. Display was great and the streaming quality was great! Don't remember if it was 4k; very very unlikely. Perhaps it was 1080p or 720p. Anyways great experience! Never tried Stadia; _even though_ I got their controller & chrome cast 4k for free in some promo offer! It was just too much work to end up paying full price for games I already owned! Such a bad bad product. The most greatest of technology/engineering! And yet, such a waste! Google really has fallen in my eyes. As a software engineer, I would be so scared to go there to work on something new.
  - ansible 4y ago
    > Never tried Stadia; _even though_ I got their controller & chrome cast 4k for free in some promo offer! As I understand it, the Stadia controller can be used like a wired USB game controller on a PC.
    - cafed00d 4y ago
      Yup, I did use it like that. You found a flaw: I shouldn’t have said “never”. I actually did try it for maybe like 5mins and got felt meh about it. It’s a nice enough controller tbh. It’s just so inconvenient compared to my wireless dualsense controller. Or any other controller: Xbox, dualshock4, steam, backbone controller connected to an iPhone etc. The stadia controller is really nice in the sense that it has Google assistant built in yadda yadda. Imagine if they made that configurable to control Cortana on windows. Or some form or voice control on windows. It would make using my living room PC that much easier.
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TillE 4y ago

Love the colorful headline which actually helps illustrate the situation in a relatively terse manner. Don't see that very often.

bovermyer 4y ago
Writing good titles is pretty difficult. There's lots of SEO advice on title crafting, but not a lot of advice on writing titles with standalone narrative value, since that doesn't generate ad revenue.

noasaservice 4y ago

I never knew any real human that thought Stadia was anywhere near a good idea, or even used it. All of us techies around me thought this was yet another dillettanting around by Google that they were going to dismiss any day now. And we were not wrong.

nicd 4y ago
As a digital nomad, Stadia was far more portable than a traditional game console or PC, and I bought and played through a few full-length games. (I did understand that it was likely to get canned, though.) So- there's at least one real human out there! I suspect there are dozens of us!
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  What do you think about Xbox Cloud Streaming?
  - aledalgrande 4y ago
    Right now Geforce Now has better offering. Connect it to your Steam account and you can play some of the titles.
    - nicd 4y ago
      When I tried Geforce Now about a year ago, I preferred Stadia (useable on Chromecast, more seamless setup, good latency). I'll certainly concede that Geforce Now is better positioned going forward though!
  - karmajunkie 4y ago
    I've tried it but it was a dramatically inferior experience to GFN or stadia. Latency was unbelievably bad. I could put it up side-by-side with Stadia and the xbox, and the latter two had just a hair difference between them responding to controller presses. XCS, on the other hand, had seconds between a button press and watching my on-screen avatar jump. Maybe its gotten better since then, the last time I gave it a try was back in the spring. But I was far from impressed.

a1371 4y ago

It's funny because Ubisoft+ was just announced, and you could play all Ubisoft titles for a monthly fee. Sounded like a huge effort. I wonder if the sudden cut is part of Google preparing for a recession.

cronix 4y ago
I would think gaming would go up during a recession. Gaming can be very cheap entertainment once the hardware is purchased. Like for the price of 4 movies in the theater at $15 a pop that might be 6 or 7 hours long in total, I can play a game for 40x that long over months for the same price and not leave my house.
- scarface74 4y ago
  The stock market is not the economy. There is no recession. Unemployment is super low. A recession is what we say in 2008.
  - seabrookmx 4y ago
    It's fair to say we're in a unique/different position than 2008. But the definition of a recession has always been two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, and that has in fact happened.
    - surfpel 4y ago
      That is one specific definition of a recession. It's funny to me because if we're resorting to semantics and nitpicking to prove whether or not there is a massive and broadly defined societal issue going on, then it probably isn't really happening... at least not enough to write home about.
      - maxfurman 4y ago
        Recessions can move very slowly. Many of the more obvious effects of the 2008 crisis didn't happen until 2009 as the contagion spread outward. It is possible that the recession has already started even if the worst economic effects are yet to come. At the very least we are in the downward part of the cycle, and we have yet to see the next bottom.

returnInfinity 4y ago

oh wow, if google does not create ways to export save game data, then destiny 2 players will lose thousands of hours of grind and possibly season exclusive items which they can never get back.

ok_dad 4y ago
Destiny 2 has "Cross Save" (characters playable on any platform) if you enable it, so there should be no issues.
ccouzens 4y ago
You can use Google takeout to export your game saves. I've used it to export my cyberpunk 2077 save but I haven't yet tried importing it into the Steam version. I would have thought that because destiny 2 is an online game, the save files would be kept on bungie's servers. Perhaps the issue with the game is more that players need to link their identity to their account on a second platform.
- cvs268 4y ago
  > I've used it to export my cyberpunk 2077 save but I haven't yet tried importing it into the Steam version. He he. :-) Reminds me of the folks who ran daily backups, but never tried to restore until they had an actual disaster (and discovered that their backups were corrupt). Hopefully, these Stadia-exported game saves can be used by other platforms like Steam.

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michaelmior 4y ago

For me, Stadia was by far the best gaming experience I've had in recent history. I'm a very casual gamer so I don't really want to invest a lot in hardware or buying games. Stadia made it very cheap for me to easily jump into a game session whenever I wanted with minimal upfront investment. I'm most disappointed to see Ubisoft+ on Stadia gone since several franchises I like were Ubisoft and now I have no easy way to play. I'll probably check out GeForce NOW at some point, but I currently don't have a way to use my only controller (Stadia) with my TV.

pdimitar 4y ago
If you don't care about graphic performances or photo-realistic quality then I can't recommend the Switch enough. Some find find the initial 300-400 EUR investment a bit steep but after you go through that they have sales all the time and you can easily amass a collection of 50+ games for a maximum of 200 EUR. I did that over the course of 2 years -- less than 10 EUR a month. Now I can't decide which game to play because I have so many, lol.
- wielebny 4y ago
  There are several gems - my family easily spent 1000+ hours on Wittcher 3, Zelda, Hades or Animal Crossing - but most of the games are just too bland. I'm a fan of cloud gaming and have used both Stadia and Xbox Cloud Gaming. It appeals to me, as I don't have to invest in a gaming rig and can play on almost everything.
  - DrSiemer 4y ago
    As a game collector and conservationist, I can only hope cloud gaming never becomes the norm.
- michaelmior 4y ago
  I really don't care that much about graphics. Sure, I don't want something that looks awful, but I care more about just taking a break and having a good time. The Switch is definitely something I've considered, but the cost relative to how much I would expect to use it makes it a more difficult choice for me than it was to pick up a Stadia controller.

pjmlp 4y ago

It was a very good way to prove everyone right in not trusting any kind of Google's products. Even Android, only succeeded because OEMs also like free beer instead of paying licenses and the day Android stops being, they can anyway carry on with the last AOSP code drop.

dougmwne 4y ago

This is a great insight into why Google completely failed to compete with established game industry titans. They don’t get the industry, don’t get the customers, don’t get their partners. Doing a rug pull on another company’s monthly active users pretty much guarantees that no game publisher will ever take them seriously ever again. That bridge is torched.

Gibbon1 4y ago
Reminds me of Intel. Back in the day they had a huge contract with Panasonic to supply flash chips. And then they decided to renege on it. Panasonic put Intel on their banned suppliers list.
- atdrummond 4y ago
  How does that work when I can still get a new Intel-based Durabook and AFAIK that line has been ongoing without any discontinuity.
  - TkTech 4y ago
    Are you maybe thinking of the Panasonic (Japan) Toughbook? I don't think the Durabook (Taiwan) brand has anything to do with Panasonic?
    - Gibbon1 4y ago
      Also that was 20 years ago and I could misremember. Or the two might have made up.
- lemper 4y ago
  they still sell toughbooks with intel chips [1] currently. can you confirm the validity of your statement? [1] https://business.panasonic.nl/mobile-solutions/rugged-laptops-for-harsh-environments https://business.panasonic.nl/mobile-solutions/rugged-laptop...
thrillgore 4y ago

twawaaay 4y ago

I believe Google is completely blind that these kinds of moves cause people to not want to invest themselves in their new products. Why would I want to pioneer using new something if there is good likelihood it will get unceremoniously killed with very little reason / advance notice.

kramerger 4y ago
It has been said that Stadia failed because not enough gamers joined, as many did not trust Google. So this has already happened, and will only get worse for Google - unless they start putting some soul into these projects

juunpp 4y ago

"It had also not been shared with longtime Stadia partners, big devs like Ubisoft and Bungie...But Google didn’t even tell their own Stadia team until the day it was announced, so really, no one knew at all." Hard to tell if this is incredible mismanagement or sheer arrogance.

miohtama 4y ago
Is there more clearer way to send a message “Working with Google does not pay off?” Google can roll in its arrogance as long as there is no credible search engine competitor or it is chopped to pieces with competion laws.
- LadyCailin 4y ago
  Google search results have consistently been getting worse over the last several years. Unfortunately, bing and others aren’t really improving either, but if things continue this way, eventually they will likely overtake Google by nature of being the least bad option.
justapassenger 4y ago
It’s pragmatism. News like that will leak. If it leaks, it’s same as no one getting a heads up.
reaperducer 4y ago
Hard to tell if this is incredible mismanagement or sheer arrogance. Yes.
- rodgerd 4y ago
  Given that Google thought that their gaming division should be headed by a guy who has been booted from multiple gaming companies for completely fucking them up (most recently the XBox One and PS3 launches), both.
  - juunpp 4y ago

SilverBirch 4y ago

I think there's probably a sentiment of "Oh Google is really messing Ubisoft and Bungie around". But I think the truth is probably slightly different. Google was offering something different, and I don't think any game studio was jumping at the chance to get on Stadia - especially given Google's reputation. So any work going on to support and develop for Stadia was almost certainly backed by Google money, not Ubisoft money. So yes, it's sad that engineering effort was wasted (but let's be real, 90% of engineering effort is wasted), in reality, it probably isn't a big hit for the game studios. This isn't a case of Google luring naive game companies into developing for Stadia and then pulling the plug, this is a matter of big spending Google trying to spend its way into a new industry and failing, probably it was quite lucrative all round. Yes, they'll have to do a bit of work to save face with their customers, but all-in-all this was probably free money for them.

Kye 4y ago
Microsoft did the same with Xbox, but they stuck with it through all the years the division was a huge money sink. Google could have taken a lesson from that: even Microsoft's existing presence in gaming with Windows, DirectX, and a long list of well-respected development studios wasn't enough for a quick entry.
- nazgulsenpai 4y ago
  Yeah, shortly after Xbox 360 launch Microsoft had to repair/replace something like 20% of them because the red ring of death, and their internal estimate at that time was around $1.1 billion. I don't Xbox and am not a Microsoft apologist but they have managed to ride this Xbox thing out. Unlike Games for Windows Live :)
  - gbasp 4y ago
  - yazzku 4y ago
    Yeah, I hate M$ with passion too, but if I remember correctly, the Xbox lead had a hard time even selling the idea of a console to the VPs back at the time, who were all business and zero gaming. And yet they managed to pull it off with sheer blood and balls. Google, with its vast surveillance/ad network raining billions on them, can't even put two legos together.

predatorian3 4y ago

If Bungie and Ubisoft would just allow Proton capability, they'd get money back.

AJRF 4y ago

From the outside looking in with this move Google have alienated Ubisoft, Bungie & Rockstar from any and all future product launches. Google seems to have become a mediocre company over the past ~5 years.

hypertele-Xii 4y ago
I'd describe Ubisoft, Bungie and Rockstar mediocre companies as well. Their best games were made decades ago. The only thing that's improved is graphical fidelity.

drexlspivey 4y ago

I am happy that Stadia is gone, maybe now all the stadia exclusives can come to Geforce Now. Presumably not much development work is needed to port your game to GN, it just needs to run on Steam. Stadia business model was flawed from the start, people want to own the games they buy, they might buy a new expensive computer in the future and don’t want to pay for the game twice. With Geforce Now you play the games that are already in your steam library.

Matl 4y ago
> I am happy that Stadia is gone Yes, everything that I don't personally like shouldn't exist because there's no way it could work for someone if it doesn't work for me, right? I am not a fan of cloud gaming, but Stadia as a service wasn't bad. As for owning games, you don't own your Steam games either, unfortunately. As glad as I am for Valve supporting Linux, the real practical difference between Steam and Stadia is that Valve has proven it will keep it around. But in terms of ownership there's hardly a difference.
- athorax 4y ago
  Hey now, let's leave the strawmen in the fields shall we?
- smileybarry 4y ago
  > As for owning games, you don't own your Steam games either, unfortunately. But I can keep my Steam games’ executables and run them without Steam, either as-is (many games are DRM-free) or with a fake Steam API DLL. Come this January, all Stadia games will be lost.
  - karmajunkie 4y ago
    Stadia did two things for me that were invaluable: * It was my primary console for about 18 months until I finally got a new xbox. worked almost flawlessly until the last few months, when Google's divestment in the platform began to show up in its performance. * It eliminated cheaters, which were a huge problem in the PC version of the game I play the most (Destiny 2). I'm bummed they're shutting down Stadia though its not world-ending for me. But I'm really not sure GFN or similar is going to work well for me on that second point, and I don't even own a PC to play those games natively. I do have an xbox now to play on, but I still do log into Stadia when i'm traveling or in another room and don't feel like coaxing my wife off the tv in the living room.

syspec 4y ago

Bit of an odd title, makes it sound like they're in in a war zone, and physically airlifting players out of Stadia

lots2learn 4y ago

Several months ago, many outlets were reporting Google was shifting focus with Stadia, turning it into a white label product where other companies could create their own cloud gaming services. I think this might be a more viable business model for them. Imagine a market where game companies like Rockstar, Capcom, Ubisoft etc have their own streaming game service products just like Netflix, Disney, Paramount, etc. You pay a monthly fee to access that studio's library. We may have seen the end of Stadia the retail product, but Stadia the platform will likely live on in another form. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-stadia-shifts-to-white-label-partnership-model-under-google-stream-brand/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-stadia-shi...