Google reveal Stadia will only have 12 games available at launch, more later in the year

That's my main reason why I think this will be another flop. It's not viable in third world countries (where low spec pcs would been benefit) and only avaliable in first world ones (…)

Other issue is that in "third-world" countries they use mainly GSM to access internet and Stadia needs really good fiber.

As far as I know in US everyone can afford good internet connection but many people can't afford good hardware and I guess that's the target.

Here in Poland you can get good fiber simply only in big cities, I would gladly pay for one but where I live there are none. :|


Last edited by pskosinski on 11 November 2019 at 9:59 pm UTC

With the lack of content presented so far it looks more and more like this project will fail. I hope it will not since it could add so many positive technical things to the gaming industry.

I disagree. I mean yes, it has some genuine advantages for multiplayer games since cheating should be impossible and there's going to no unreliable client<>server or client<>client sync (but in exchange you get input lag), and people don't have to pay the high entry fee for a console or gaming PC, but that's about where the advantages for the consumer end.

...

It is not as simple as that. You have input lag in all games.
For multiplayer games the input depends on how much the server is willing to trust the client data. For services like Stadia the input lag should be well known and quite predictable. Remember that the communication delay is only in single direction. If you send a ping message then the input lag is half that. On a good internet connection that would equal well above 60fps. In gaming terms this problem is actually a variation of rubber banding.
It is the same for single player games if the update frequency is low (which is likely the case if you run a game with 4k + HDR). A game running as a slide show is usually uncontrollable because of input lag.

With on-line streaming services it should actually be possible to reduce input lag just because the simple fact that the fps is high. Then you also get the benefit of much more storage for cut scenes in high quality. There is a possibility of a much more advance AI. The benefit of much easier server programming which hopefully could help the indie market. Also the thing google were talking about which will allow people to pick up from someone else stream sounds like an interesting concept.

I don't mind if the streaming market will become successful but what google has presented so far leaves a lot to wish for. Also, I would be surprised if at launch, everything will be working smoothly. I don't think they will reach the level of what is potentiality possible with today's hardware. It will take a while.

As far as I know in US everyone can afford good internet connection but many people can't afford good hardware and I guess that's the target.

Roughly 8% of the US has no access to high-speed internet.

I'd be surprised if my internet here in Canada could handle Stadia. I'm in a big city, but I can't even stream Stardew Valley from Steam to my tablet.

Sheesh. Not even a baker's dozen.

Are they trying to fail?

Nothing at all to interest me; I do not play twitch games, because I totally suck at them.

The same reason I don't have a console, nor use a controller.

And Google, in their infinite wisdom, decided to not launch Stadia in any of the regions where the latter would actually matter.

This! Totally this!!

That's my main reason why I think this will be another flop. It's not viable in third world countries (where low spec pcs would been benefit) and only avaliable in first world ones (where people can afford high end hardware, therefore, will have a better experience playing local)

The idea of streaming games it's not bad in concept and I believe it'll probably be the future of all software (for better or worse), but like VR, it's a technology "too soon to succeed"

Isn't this technically a "Soft" or "Beta" launch, hence the subscription requirement for the Founder's Edition? I know the general version of the service doesn't launch till next year, so my guess is that this is to get actual users on the platform to get real-world performance data so they are less likely to run into issues on the true launch day

id stream RDR2, because i dont have 110GB on my hard drive and i would play it for weeks/months
same with odyssey...
but i dont want google... i hope it is true, that valve starts a streaming service

If stadia is only 10$ a month, you put that away for 4 years you can buy a computer that will be able to run most games on hihg/ultra for at least a year, and run games quite a number of years afterwards. Also, places where buying a computer might be a blocking factor, don't generally have stable internet connections to stream 1080p let alone 4k. Services like these could be attractive to those that consider the bare minimum of setting up a computer (like turning on their consoles) a chore, or "too much".

When taking total cost of ownership into account, I do hope a library of Stadia games proves to be an accessible luxury for people who have heretofore been priced out of the market. Games preservation, mod support, lack of offline access, etc are further removed on the hierarchy of wants/values for the person who doesn't have particularly viable means of gaming without cloud gaming. As it currently stands, cloud gaming isn't for me; I lose more value than I gain.

However, a potential exception for me is that I am interested in how cloud-computing resources could aid in rendering seamless, incredibly expansive and detailed experiences that wouldn't be feasible on even the beefiest gaming rig. That being said, I am skeptical. Game developers frequently don't do an outstanding job fleshing out content on a small scale let alone on a massive scale. This is not necessarily their fault; they are subject to resource constraints as well as internal and external pressures. I don't think most publishers would be receptive to letting games incubate longer in development than they already do even if the games were much more intricate, and I'm not interested in a half-assed game in which the actual content is sparse, it's just spread over a procedurally-generated sprawling expanse, or a game where character models and mannerisms are incredibly detailed but the game is bereft of story, purpose, or entertainment.

They're in for the long run. Will take them years until the library is "big enough" to make it even viable. They're throwing their weight at the gaming market, and they've cash enough to sustain that, especially controlling the android ecosystem.

We'll be able to judge if Stadia was a success or not in ~5 years or so.

Are they trying to fail?

Might be, kind of. Because it would be slightly inconvenient if everybody would rush to try it out, overstressing the servers and then leave with a "Stadia sucks" because all they got was a "server full" message or bad performance.

And not a single one I'm interested in. Which saves me the FOMO, I guess.

The price and content of the subscriptions ensures i will never feel FOMO also i bc i dont believe fomo is a thing and if it has become a thing we need to destroy social media now.

Oh, poor innocent. It was a thing before social media even existed, it just didn't have a catchy acronym.

It definitely was a thing before social media, but post-social media it's been far easier for companies to leverage FOMO against an exponentially larger, and more susceptible, audience.

Not "believing" in FOMO is like not believing in the entire field of consumer psychology. Anyone interested really ought to watch the BBC documentary "The Century of the Self" (Wikipedia article. Incredibly interesting stuff.

I'm not super-familiar with all these games (none of them are stuff I'd be interested in), but aren't they all character-based action-oriented games? Come to think of it, for a streaming service, why don't they have any single player games that aren't action-oriented? Y'know, ones where the slightest input lag wouldn't destroy people's ability to enjoy it? Imagine playing a Civilization game where the fractions of a second of lag don't affect it too much, with the power of a server somewhere to calculate those interminable late-game AI turns. Or any of the many graphically-less-demanding puzzle-type games out there. Those would seem to be a much more natural fit than games where speed and reaction time matter. But I guess some suit at Google thought they wouldn't get the "hardcore" gamers if they didn't offer entirely AAA action games.

English is not my language sorry. Google will go wrong is signed. Simply for not selling games for PC, the "gaming community" in general that can not access a fast internet in much of the world, throw trash against the platform.
Another thing I read is about negative latency or AI in gaming is fatal since it predicts beforehand a shot or any other action loading the experience.
If it were a platform that can download the video game for Linux flatpak type so that developers and companies remain calm about its code that is locked without access to the source code.

Still no info on game pricing though. I'm curious to see what they think the value is of a game that is so tied to their service that there is no hope for recovery if Google calls it quits.

It's not native but the lutris install for the epic launcher with the patched 64 bit .net runs borderlands 3 fine. not willing to spend money on rdr2 to find out if it works though.

Everyone's their own of course, but I'm surprised how many people state no interest at all in Red Dead Redemption 2.

I'm not super-familiar with all these games (none of them are stuff I'd be interested in), but aren't they all character-based action-oriented games? Come to think of it, for a streaming service, why don't they have any single player games that aren't action-oriented? Y'know, ones where the slightest input lag wouldn't destroy people's ability to enjoy it?

German computer magazine c't has asked people to play games on PCs without telling them they were streamed - and the people didn't even realize. Furthermore, every online game has the same communication lines to cross...

Other issue is that in "third-world" countries they use mainly GSM to access internet and Stadia needs really good fiber.

As far as I know in US everyone can afford good internet connection but many people can't afford good hardware and I guess that's the target.

Here in Poland you can get good fiber simply only in big cities, I would gladly pay for one but where I live there are none. :|

Yup, I do live in one (the most expensive one btw) and I know that unfortunately it's impossible to a project like Stadia to succeed here due to poor network infrastructure, but ironically would be the perfect place for consumers because of the vast low end pc/notebooks here.

Isn't this technically a "Soft" or "Beta" launch, hence the subscription requirement for the Founder's Edition? I know the general version of the service doesn't launch till next year, so my guess is that this is to get actual users on the platform to get real-world performance data so they are less likely to run into issues on the true launch day

Even though it's still beta, average consumer want only the better experience, so if the first impression is "it's worse than playing with my high end pc" then people won't use it anymore. Valve made a similar mistake with Steam machines because they didn't refined the system (SteamOS, drivers, big picture...) before launching it for the public, then was released and floped.

Different from Netflix, the smallest input lag can be terrible when we talk about games (especially the fast paced ones) and this will be the main complaint when it release officially.

Some people may continue to use, but it'll be a niche, and a niche can't sustain this kind of market.

Because it would be slightly inconvenient if everybody would rush to try it out, overstressing the servers and then leave with a "Stadia sucks" because all they got was a "server full" message or bad performance.

In my opinion you're more right than you know :)