Info on Google Stadia from today’s Stadia Connect, Baldur’s Gate III announced too

The announcement of Baldur's Gate 3 made me think I could give Stadia a go and try it out. Now that I know it will be released on Steam, and potentially GOG, I rather wait and get it via normal means.

and potentially GOG

Looks like it will be on GOG upon release: https://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_iii (I mean it already has a store page)

Different opinion here. Imho Stadia has a very compelling case when it comes to pricing. It's a free 7-8 years old PC/ console at 1080p and for 4K 9 bucks at month is a nobrainer deluxe hardware for any PC gamer and is a very competitive price for consoleyards.

Then price aside, I see Stadia as the ultimate console killer. On consoles people is used to buy games that are so bound to a console that will literally die with the console itself after a few years. With Stadia they could even see added value as the platform won't And the convenience it offers can hardly been beaten. Microsoft and Sony did well to ally against Google. Unless Google screws up hard with their cloud (unlikely but possible) they will erase xbox and ps simply because consoles are inferior platforms and there is nothing they can do better than Stadia.

But we PC gamers? We are a different kind. Stadia offers none of what Steam offers in term of features. No mods, no support for old titles, huge freedom and flexibility when it comes to input/output devices and so on. But it's all stuff that the guys at Google can figure out eventually.
And admittedly the fact remain that we pay a huge premium for those perks in terms of personally owned hardware. Is it really worth it? Build/buy a 4K PC that runs modern games is an expensive affair. Many PC gamers could just decide that it's not worth the money and just use Stadia when the time comes to upgrade their rigs.

so I won't be so fast to dismiss Stadia. Its extreme convenience and cheap prices are hard to beat. And even if present day PC gatekeepers like Valve and wannabe Epic decide to respond in kind by launching their own cloud, Google is undeniably advantaged on that side because they own their cloud.

and potentially GOG

Looks like it will be on GOG upon release: https://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_iii (I mean it already has a store page)

Even better, I had not checked actually :)

Not going to say that you are wrong. I totally understand your point of view. But let me be the Devil's advocate, for a minute...

It's not free in any form:
Base Stadia - You buy the games.

It depends on the pricing of each games and the conditions, imo. Will they be ours forever, like Steam, even if it's not sold anymore, or are these games exposed to disapearing from the store like the Netflix model? We have no clues about these aspects, yet. Personnally I expected a subscription plan, similar to Netflix, even for the base option. To me it still an interresting option.

Stadia Pro - You pay monthly, you buy games, you get few select free.

It compares to PS Plus and Xbox pass which are popular options. It's not a new formula and it's much better thant I expected it to be. This said, probably not my bag.

Also, "unfair" about paying and not having any real access to the files, what's fair about it?
Google has issues? No game.
Your net has issues? No game.

This can be replaced by: "Motherboard failure ($$$), no games, HDD failure ($$), no games, GPU failure($$$$), no games, RAM failure($), no games... Want me to go on? It's all about managing the risks. Both point of view are valid.

Modding? Haha no.

I don't think Stadia is targeted to the 1% techy educated market share that we represent or even the hardcore gamers that mods, which, I suspect, is not the vast majority. It probably has more appeal to the Xbox and Playstation players or the Windows users that have stopped gaming because of an ageing computer and/or are due for an hardware upgrade.

Personnally I see it as a complement to my Linux rig, for games that will never be playable on my Desktop, because there will be. You know "Stadia Games and Entertainment" produced games?


Last edited by Mohandevir on 7 June 2019 at 1:04 pm UTC

Not going to say that you are wrong. I totally understand your point of view. But let me be the Devil's advocate, for a minute...

It's not free in any form:
Base Stadia - You buy the games.

It depends on the pricing of each games and the conditions, imo. Will they be ours forever, like Steam, even if it's not sold anymore, or are these games exposed to disapearing from the store like the Netflix model? We have no clues about these aspects, yet. Personnally I expected a subscription plan, similar to Netflix, even for the base option. To me it still an interresting option.

Stadia Pro - You pay monthly, you buy games, you get few select free.

It compares to PS Plus and Xbox pass which are popular options. It's not a new formula and it's much better thant I expected it to be. This said, probably not my bag.

Also, "unfair" about paying and not having any real access to the files, what's fair about it?
Google has issues? No game.
Your net has issues? No game.

This can be replaced by: "Motherboard failure ($$$), no games, HDD failure ($$), no games, GPU failure($$$$), no games, RAM failure($), no games... Want me to go on? It's all about managing the risks. Both point of view are valid.

Modding? Haha no.

I don't think Stadia is targeted to the 1% techy educated market share that we represent or even the hardcore gamers that mods, which, I suspect, is not the vast majority. It probably has more appeal to the Xbox and Playstation players or the Windows users that have stopped gaming because of an ageing computer and/or are due for an hardware upgrade.

Personnally I see it as a complement to my Linux rig, for games that will never be playable on my Desktop, because there will be. You know "Stadia Games and Entertainment" produced games?

For buying games, it sound very much like you buy them and keep them, not a Netflix model, that seems pretty clear to me. Otherwise, you're not buying you're renting.

Okay, now you're starting to get me to think more on it. I never even thought about components breaking down, leaving you out of playing your games. Now that's a very valid point worth something.

It depends on the pricing of each games and the conditions, imo. Will they be ours forever, like Steam, even if it's not sold anymore, or are these games exposed to disapearing from the store like the Netflix model?

Kind of irrelevant in this. If Stadia stops supporting it, it becomes useless since you can't run it anywhere else. Which is the major problem with purchases for a service like this. Unless the price of games is so low that you would accept a throw-away purchase, this is a real deal breaker.

If Stadia stops supporting it

That's my whole point. We don't know. There are still missing pieces in the puzzle. If they plan to stop supporting games, I hope, at least, that prices will be lower, like renting. Either way, it makes it much less interresting. That's obvious.

Or you meant if Google stops supporting Stadia? Well... Just like in the old days, when a PS, PS2 broke down and you couldn't buy an new one. Game Library gone. The PC gamers are lucky, in that aspect.

This said, if Stadia is a success, there is no reason to stop supporting it. Google+ was shutdown because nobody used it anymore. If Stadia is a failure, who will it hurt? It's going to die in general indifference, like the other projects Google killed. That's the catch 22 I was referring to in a previous post. Imo, it's not a valid argument.

Thinking about it, what could happen, is a change in the conditions (free being not free anymore & price raise on the Pro subscription) because infra costs skyrockets (example). This could make a user reconsider Stadia and eventually make Goodle reconsider the whole thing. But again, it will have become a failure by then.

Edit: Sorry for all the edits.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 7 June 2019 at 1:49 pm UTC

I think complex simulation should be the real benefit of cloud gaming. Pushing more pixels per second? Local PC hardware handles that better and better every year. How much photorealism do we really need? At some point we won't see any difference, while server clusters is an overkill for that purpose.

And this heavy bend on graphics is really weird, given how many interesting things in gaming are underdeveloped. Strategy is more straightforward sure, but imagine something more complicated. Such as simulating climate, or a biological ecosystem, or simulating NPC behavior not based on predefined scripts, but on their self learning driven by in-game interactions. It's surprising these kind of ideas aren't yet applied more widely in gaming, with all this push for the cloud.

I personally agree very, very much. There is so much that could be done, and what is actually done (graphics-wise) sometimes is so meaningless. But the market is weird.

And frankly, more complex simulations don't always result in differences we can see. There are interesting possibilities, but in a sense people approach simulation in a much more logical way than graphics - with sensible trade-offs between performance and complexity and considerations between how much that impacts actual enjoyment of the game...

I taking 'wait and see' approach. For me, anything streaming (heck even Spotify) needs constant and reliable network, which is impossible to get either one (and sometimes even both), anywhere in or near my area.

If Google have solution for both issue, probably I tempted to try it. If not, I'm stick with Steam and itch (or go on "sailing" if I'm totally desperate).

From Kotaku:

"Google says it’ll be one user per Stadia account, tied to your Google ID—you can have a guest account for splitscreen, but other than that, no sharing. (Update (2:43pm): A Google spokesperson reached out to say that family sharing is coming in the future.)"

Source:
https://kotaku.com/everything-we-learned-today-about-google-stadia-update-1835294433

Bold on me. I like Steam family sharing pretty much.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 7 June 2019 at 2:29 pm UTC

I think it is also unfair to keep repeating how not having access to the game files is a drawback. What about the upsides of this solution? There is no download and installation time, you can seamlessly switch between devices without stopping the gaming session and you do not have to own a gaming PC or a gaming console that is capable of running the game. And one more for us, Linux fans - you do not have to deal with the Windows 10 bullshit :)

But... it is a drawback, and not even a necessary one to have those benefits.

Not necessary I guess, but if they're going to let you buy it they have to have a version for whatever platform you're on because most of their customers probably aren't running Stadia Linux stuff on their devices. Having a store-as-such makes the project a lot more complicated in an area where they don't have expertise.

If Stadia stops supporting it

Or you meant if Google stops supporting Stadia? Well... Just like in the old days, when a PS, PS2 broke down and you couldn't buy an new one. Game Library gone. The PC gamers are lucky, in that aspect.

In that regard it would not be much different than if Valve stops supporting Steam. Aside of the games that can be played outside of the client, all the rest would be just digital garbage.

If Stadia stops supporting it

Or you meant if Google stops supporting Stadia? Well... Just like in the old days, when a PS, PS2 broke down and you couldn't buy an new one. Game Library gone. The PC gamers are lucky, in that aspect.

In that regard it would not be much different than if Valve stops supporting Steam. Aside of the games that can be played outside of the client, all the rest would be just digital garbage.

The latter comparison (Steam-Stadia) is a bit more on point; but the PS2 comparison hardly works at all. Google 'stopping support' for Stadia would correspond to the *possibility* of running anything on a PS2 going away, which entails i) every PS2 in the world evaporating; ii) every copy of every game disappearing so it can't be emulated (or its becoming impossible that an emulator should be developed by reverse engineering).

If your PS2 broke, and you couldn't afford to get a new console, you could still hold on to your games to play them at your friend's house; or save up to get a used PS2 in 2 years; or wait 10 years so an accurate emulator shows up. When something like Stadia 'breaks', you have none of those possibilities.

Even with Steam: As long as you have the downloaded files, you could try cracking them to get around the DRM. Again, no such *possibility* on Stadia.

... but if they're going to let you buy it they have to have a version for whatever platform you're on because most of their customers probably aren't running Stadia Linux stuff on their devices. Having a store-as-such makes the project a lot more complicated in an area where they don't have expertise.

This is confusing; no one except Google will be running 'Stadio Linux stuff on their devices', there's no such OS -- or even application -- for the end user to run. All the user has is a browser window into the 'service'.

If Stadia stops supporting it

Or you meant if Google stops supporting Stadia? Well... Just like in the old days, when a PS, PS2 broke down and you couldn't buy an new one. Game Library gone. The PC gamers are lucky, in that aspect.

I don't think this is a proper equivalence. There are always extenuating circumstances, but when you have the game yourself, there is this sense of having more control over the situation. I can still play my Playstation games on my PS3, for example. Many people can still play their older console games in an emulator as well.

With Stadia exclusive titles, there may not be any physical or digital copy available outside of Google's servers, and so no way for anyone to provide an alternative means to continue playing if Google decides to stop providing the game.

To develop this idea, I think more computing power would be needed for some sophisticated AI, not for better visuals.

Fair point. That was in the back of my mind too, but the comment was already getting pretty long. :)

The latter comparison (Steam-Stadia) is a bit more on point; but the PS2 comparison hardly works at all. Google 'stopping support' for Stadia would correspond to the *possibility* of running anything on a PS2 going away, which entails i) every PS2 in the world evaporating; ii) every copy of every game disappearing so it can't be emulated (or its becoming impossible that an emulator should be developed by reverse engineering).

If your PS2 broke, and you couldn't afford to get a new console, you could still hold on to your games to play them at your friend's house; or save up to get a used PS2 in 2 years; or wait 10 years so an accurate emulator shows up. When something like Stadia 'breaks', you have none of those possibilities.

Totally true! It's just that I never really resolved to these solutions (used or friend's PS2. In my case). As for emulators, it's quite a bet, considering all the legal stuff involved. I was referring to PS2 when Sony stopped producing them, but in a more general view (all PS2 disapearing of a sudden), it effectively doesn't make sense.

But my point is that there was (with the PS2) and there is (with Stadia) the possibility of loosing your game library.

Also, "unfair" about paying and not having any real access to the files, what's fair about it?
Google has issues? No game.
Your net has issues? No game.

This can be replaced by: "Motherboard failure ($$$), no games, HDD failure ($$), no games, GPU failure($$$$), no games, RAM failure($), no games... Want me to go on? It's all about managing the risks. Both point of view are valid.

None of these failures have happened to me in over 15 years, so it's such a tiny risk that I don't see a reason to even factor it into my game-purchasing decisions. Power or cable failures, on the other hand, happen several times a year, not to mention that sometimes I might want to play a game somewhere without Internet access.

Also, "unfair" about paying and not having any real access to the files, what's fair about it?
Google has issues? No game.
Your net has issues? No game.

This can be replaced by: "Motherboard failure ($$$), no games, HDD failure ($$), no games, GPU failure($$$$), no games, RAM failure($), no games... Want me to go on? It's all about managing the risks. Both point of view are valid.

None of these failures have happened to me in over 15 years, so it's such a tiny risk that I don't see a reason to even factor it into my game-purchasing decisions. Power or cable failures, on the other hand, happen several times a year, not to mention that sometimes I might want to play a game somewhere without Internet access.

Yeah... Want me to show you my brand new RX580 that I had to send back, 2 months ago?

No hard drive failure in 15 years? Wow! Hardly believable.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 7 June 2019 at 3:53 pm UTC