We have more interesting news to share this morning about updates surrounding Google Stadia, the game streaming service.
Firstly, engineer Justin Uberti who helped to create WebRTC and Google Duo has announced they've moved onto leading the Google Stadia engineering team. Google certainly need all the help they can get building their gaming platform, after such a rough launch. Uberti also mentioned that they will be hiring for Stadia in Seattle/Kirkland (USA) so get in touch if working on cloud gaming sounds like your thing.
Google have also finally put the Stadia store online in the browser, it's no longer totally locked to the mobile app. This was one of the pain points of the early launch, although you likely still need to actually have a Stadia account and a Chromium-based browser to even access it.
As you can see from the above shot Darksiders Genesis is also a brand new release, which came with same-day Stadia support so anyone who is currently in can play Darksiders Genesis on Linux with Stadia.
However, curiously, Darksiders Genesis actually costs more on Stadia than it does on other stores like Steam. On Stadia it's £34.99, on Steam it's £26.99. This highlights another big problem Stadia has, the pricing is already not competitive with other leading stores. Considering you get no local copy, it feels thoroughly wrong that it costs more.
On the brighter side of game news, the complete Destiny 2 pack is going to remain on Stadia Pro "for the foreseeable future" and it sounds like there's no current plan to remove it. Meaning anyone signing up to Stadia Pro next year when it's open to everyone, should be able to grab the whole bundle. Additionally, those who opt for Destiny 2 on Stadia will get quite literally everything (all seasons, raids, campaigns and so on) released for it through Summer 2020. Confirmed here under "Accessing Destiny 2".
If you're interested in seeing how Stadia runs on Linux, see my own initial impressions here. We've yet to face any major problems with it. Another option to play even more top games on Linux is great.
Lastly, if you wish to try out Stadia, Google have announced they're doing a few pop-up locations for people to come along and try it in: Los Angeles USA (Dec 11), London UK (Dec 11) and Paris France (Dec 13), more info on that here.
Quotethey will be hiring for Stadia in in Seattle/Kirkland (USA)Separated from Valve by the Lake Washington ...
Last edited by 0aTT on 6 December 2019 at 10:37 am UTC
Launching with lackluster features? Check.
Launching with myriads of problems? Check.
Launching with few available games? Check.
Non-competitive pricing? Check.
...
So weird.
Last edited by Nanobang on 6 December 2019 at 12:25 pm UTC
Quoting: NanobangI'm a bit confused about the nature of Stadia. Is there more to it for Linux gamers than just using Linux at Google's end? If there isn't, it's fine with me---please don't think I'm trying to knock coverage of it here. I'm just feeling an excitement around Stadia here that I'm not feeling myself, so I figure I must have missed something along the way.No, it's not just because it uses Linux on Google's servers, the entire point is that it's yet another option to play popular titles on Linux. Especially true for multiplayer titles (like Destiny 2). If it was just server stuff, we wouldn't cover it past their initial announcement. We're all about Linux + Gaming of course ;)
I see it on a comparable level to Steam Play at the very least. In comparison to Steam Play though, games on Stadia should "just work" where as Steam Play is a gamble unless you specifically seek-out titles that others have already been the guinea pig for to let you know if it works at all.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 6 December 2019 at 12:45 pm UTC
Or maybe they are actually using an aggressive launch promotion and the games will get even more expensive in the future. :D
Last edited by Shmerl on 6 December 2019 at 4:32 pm UTC
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