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“So much screaming inside me”–Google Stadia shutdown stuns indie developers

19 points by carride 4y ago

rogerkirkness 4y ago
Highly recommend finding the interview where Eric Schmidt talks about how products with product/market fit and products without follow predictable growth curves that are highly alike in each case. My understanding is that any product that is on the not product/market fit curve after 2-3 years gets shut down.
bdcravens 4y ago
The bigger news isn't that indie developers are stunned - they shouldn't be, given Google's product history. The real story is that Stadia employees had no clue, and were operating normally until the announcement. (Even if employees don't know 100%, typically management will put a freeze on some operations with a vague excuse)
- jeffwask 4y ago
  They were giving it away as a benefit to OnePlus customers a week before they shut it down. Here's a free benefit for your membership... psych.
- ncr100 4y ago
  > stunned - they shouldn't be, given Google's product history I disagree, a slight thing but worthwhile disagree, I think useful to remaining an integrated and active human: the premise that there is a "should not" about being stunned presumes feeling surprise is somehow bad, a "should not." It's okay to be stunned. Feelings can be inconvenient and wrong / only part of the picture. And you I assume want a deterministic life. SO, learn to cope with feelings. Generally, accept feelings and reactions as a part of existence. Otherwise you (human) will start to ignore your feelings and get neurotic.
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    "should not" doesn't always mean judgement; it speaks of probability: "A cat should not have five legs". Or to speak to human emotions: "Your partner cheated on 5 out of their last 10 partners. You should not be stunned that they cheated on you". Also, in your poetic musings on the human condition and the validity of emotions, I think you're confusing being upset with being stunned. We can be upset at something, even if we shouldn't be surprised it happened.
- nstart 4y ago
  And then right after they announced the shutdown the chromebooks division announces a gaming oriented Chromebook lineup that has partnered with Microsoft, Amazon, and nvidia on their cloud gaming offerings. That must hurt the stadia team so much.
monlockandkey 4y ago
Stadia failure is due to them using Linux. Having to get people to spend time and money to port games. If they used windows, they would have thousands of games. The tech is really good, but they were hampered by the library and "bribing" studios to port.
- gen3 4y ago
  That can't be the only reason. Valve's Steamdeck has been a big success and it runs linux.
  - kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
    With a Windows emulation layer over it, right?
    - gen3 4y ago
      For games that need it, yes. Proton works very will and Valve has done a ton of work to certify that games work on the handheld. There are currently 5.5k+ games with the verified or playable status, and if a game isn't on the list it still might work fine.
- wudangmonk 4y ago
  It was never the quantity of games available. Nobody wants to buy the same games on multiple services. They should have partnered with steam so you could import games from steam to play on stadia. They also needed to have a game studio designing games that actually took advantage of what stadia could potentially provide.
- DoItToMe81 4y ago
  The concept of Stadia is paying for games separately in a way that will inherently run worse than a good machine due to latency. Its failure is due to it being a garbage concept that most people smelled from a mile away.
- yucky 4y ago
  Isn't Steam Linux?
drumhead 4y ago
What's the rule we should all know by now? Never use a Google service. We may joke about it but how many people have been left high and dry by their capriciousness? Next on the list, Google cloud...
jokabrink 4y ago
Reliability. That's what Google traded for a quick and sudden exit. I think the damage is far greater than the rather small number of people in and around Stadia. I guess there is a message: "When a Google product does not show a reasonable growth after a certain time, it will be killed". There are many examples (See https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/), and I think people will more and more consider this when jumping on a newly launched platform that they will later rely on.

19 points by carride 4y ago

Highly recommend finding the interview where Eric Schmidt talks about how products with product/market fit and products without follow predictable growth curves that are highly alike in each case. My understanding is that any product that is on the not product/market fit curve after 2-3 years gets shut down.

bdcravens 4y ago

The bigger news isn't that indie developers are stunned - they shouldn't be, given Google's product history. The real story is that Stadia employees had no clue, and were operating normally until the announcement. (Even if employees don't know 100%, typically management will put a freeze on some operations with a vague excuse)

jeffwask 4y ago
They were giving it away as a benefit to OnePlus customers a week before they shut it down. Here's a free benefit for your membership... psych.
ncr100 4y ago
> stunned - they shouldn't be, given Google's product history I disagree, a slight thing but worthwhile disagree, I think useful to remaining an integrated and active human: the premise that there is a "should not" about being stunned presumes feeling surprise is somehow bad, a "should not." It's okay to be stunned. Feelings can be inconvenient and wrong / only part of the picture. And you I assume want a deterministic life. SO, learn to cope with feelings. Generally, accept feelings and reactions as a part of existence. Otherwise you (human) will start to ignore your feelings and get neurotic.
- bdcravens 4y ago
  "should not" doesn't always mean judgement; it speaks of probability: "A cat should not have five legs". Or to speak to human emotions: "Your partner cheated on 5 out of their last 10 partners. You should not be stunned that they cheated on you". Also, in your poetic musings on the human condition and the validity of emotions, I think you're confusing being upset with being stunned. We can be upset at something, even if we shouldn't be surprised it happened.
nstart 4y ago
And then right after they announced the shutdown the chromebooks division announces a gaming oriented Chromebook lineup that has partnered with Microsoft, Amazon, and nvidia on their cloud gaming offerings. That must hurt the stadia team so much.

monlockandkey 4y ago

Stadia failure is due to them using Linux. Having to get people to spend time and money to port games. If they used windows, they would have thousands of games. The tech is really good, but they were hampered by the library and "bribing" studios to port.

gen3 4y ago
That can't be the only reason. Valve's Steamdeck has been a big success and it runs linux.
- kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
  With a Windows emulation layer over it, right?
  - gen3 4y ago
    For games that need it, yes. Proton works very will and Valve has done a ton of work to certify that games work on the handheld. There are currently 5.5k+ games with the verified or playable status, and if a game isn't on the list it still might work fine.
wudangmonk 4y ago
It was never the quantity of games available. Nobody wants to buy the same games on multiple services. They should have partnered with steam so you could import games from steam to play on stadia. They also needed to have a game studio designing games that actually took advantage of what stadia could potentially provide.
DoItToMe81 4y ago
The concept of Stadia is paying for games separately in a way that will inherently run worse than a good machine due to latency. Its failure is due to it being a garbage concept that most people smelled from a mile away.
yucky 4y ago
Isn't Steam Linux?

drumhead 4y ago

What's the rule we should all know by now? Never use a Google service. We may joke about it but how many people have been left high and dry by their capriciousness? Next on the list, Google cloud...

jokabrink 4y ago

Reliability. That's what Google traded for a quick and sudden exit. I think the damage is far greater than the rather small number of people in and around Stadia. I guess there is a message: "When a Google product does not show a reasonable growth after a certain time, it will be killed". There are many examples (See https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/), and I think people will more and more consider this when jumping on a newly launched platform that they will later rely on.