7 ms·

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

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.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  Not the developers who google poured millions into to have them port games to stadia.
- polski-g 4y ago
  Porting games? Isn't it essentially and RDP connection?
  - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
    Nope, it ran on specific hardware and needed specific compilation. It definitely wasn't free to support.
somenameforme 4y ago
As an aside about GPUs, things have changed a lot over the years. In the early 2000s games were being released that were impossible to run on high settings with current hardware, and your hardware was outdated after 3 months and obsolete after a year. Today An RX580 (released in 2017) can be had for $100-$200 and is enough to comfortably run any modern game at quite nice settings. It's been a while since I looked as well, it's entirely possible the Ethereum swap is pushing card prices down even lower. You only need the silly priced cards if you want to do something like play games on maxed out settings in 4k at a locked 120fps.
- zeppelin101 4y ago
  But consider the cost of power. For many people, especially Europeans, the power bill from running a gaming PC might be substantially higher than that of running a laptop + Stadia or GeForce Now monthly subscription.
  - amluto 4y ago
    Which indicates that something is wrong with the residential electricity markets. Google should not be paying substantially less for marginal electricity than Google’s customers. (This is a major problem with California’s energy planning. On the one hand, CA (IMO fairly sensibly) wants users to switch from gas to electricity. On the other hand, CA’s electricity prices are so egregiously inflated that people have an economic incentive to switch from electricity to gas.)
    - zeppelin101 4y ago
      > Which indicates that something is wrong with the residential electricity markets. Google should not be paying substantially less for marginal electricity than Google’s customers. In a more perfect world, that would be the case!
      - kjeetgill 4y ago
        Not at all. We want companies to leverage economies of scale. Efficiency should bring competitive advantage. Google often invests in datacenters in places based around where it's cheaper to power and run them, often owning the energy production. This is a good thing
onion2k 4y ago
I got a free game system for years since they are giving everyone refunds. This will be a common attitude in the future as far as Google's consumer products go. People will buy them expecting them to shut down in a few years, but now they'll also expect a refund. If you're a Googler who dreams of heading up a project to make something consumer-facing it'll be a lot harder to get buy-in from the board now that it'll cost so much more to shut it down (in dollars if a refund is given or in good will if it isn't) anything that's not a massive success.
- erik_seaberg 4y ago
  Keeping services stable on life support is a muscle Google needs to build if they want to be relied on. Maybe that will happen when there’s an overt price tag on neglecting it.
Hnaomyiph 4y ago
Considering more people are reading these headlines than experiencing a round of google freebies for their shutdown, this is only going to work to limit consumer buy-in on whatever google decides it needs to do next. Google is panically trying to find another unicorn, as it knows its current cash cow, ads, is holding almost all its eggs and could be facing its demise as online regulation only continues to strengthen. Not to mention google’s perverse promotional incentives that ignore supporting products long term, focusing on launching new things instead. Google, as it is right now, is a dying company. They need basically a complete overhaul, starting with firing the entire C-level, especially the true CEO, Ruth Porat.

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.
shapefrog 4y ago
Not the developers who google poured millions into to have them port games to stadia.
polski-g 4y ago
Porting games? Isn't it essentially and RDP connection?
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  Nope, it ran on specific hardware and needed specific compilation. It definitely wasn't free to support.

somenameforme 4y ago

As an aside about GPUs, things have changed a lot over the years. In the early 2000s games were being released that were impossible to run on high settings with current hardware, and your hardware was outdated after 3 months and obsolete after a year. Today An RX580 (released in 2017) can be had for $100-$200 and is enough to comfortably run any modern game at quite nice settings. It's been a while since I looked as well, it's entirely possible the Ethereum swap is pushing card prices down even lower. You only need the silly priced cards if you want to do something like play games on maxed out settings in 4k at a locked 120fps.

zeppelin101 4y ago
But consider the cost of power. For many people, especially Europeans, the power bill from running a gaming PC might be substantially higher than that of running a laptop + Stadia or GeForce Now monthly subscription.
- amluto 4y ago
  Which indicates that something is wrong with the residential electricity markets. Google should not be paying substantially less for marginal electricity than Google’s customers. (This is a major problem with California’s energy planning. On the one hand, CA (IMO fairly sensibly) wants users to switch from gas to electricity. On the other hand, CA’s electricity prices are so egregiously inflated that people have an economic incentive to switch from electricity to gas.)
  - zeppelin101 4y ago
    > Which indicates that something is wrong with the residential electricity markets. Google should not be paying substantially less for marginal electricity than Google’s customers. In a more perfect world, that would be the case!
    - kjeetgill 4y ago
      Not at all. We want companies to leverage economies of scale. Efficiency should bring competitive advantage. Google often invests in datacenters in places based around where it's cheaper to power and run them, often owning the energy production. This is a good thing

onion2k 4y ago

I got a free game system for years since they are giving everyone refunds. This will be a common attitude in the future as far as Google's consumer products go. People will buy them expecting them to shut down in a few years, but now they'll also expect a refund. If you're a Googler who dreams of heading up a project to make something consumer-facing it'll be a lot harder to get buy-in from the board now that it'll cost so much more to shut it down (in dollars if a refund is given or in good will if it isn't) anything that's not a massive success.

erik_seaberg 4y ago
Keeping services stable on life support is a muscle Google needs to build if they want to be relied on. Maybe that will happen when there’s an overt price tag on neglecting it.

Hnaomyiph 4y ago

Considering more people are reading these headlines than experiencing a round of google freebies for their shutdown, this is only going to work to limit consumer buy-in on whatever google decides it needs to do next. Google is panically trying to find another unicorn, as it knows its current cash cow, ads, is holding almost all its eggs and could be facing its demise as online regulation only continues to strengthen. Not to mention google’s perverse promotional incentives that ignore supporting products long term, focusing on launching new things instead. Google, as it is right now, is a dying company. They need basically a complete overhaul, starting with firing the entire C-level, especially the true CEO, Ruth Porat.