Google: Stadia Isn't 'Netflix for Games'

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this folio. Terms of use.

(Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Google held an AMA yesterday on its upcoming cloud gaming service, Stadia. Stadia is a unique project in gaming — at that place's no other service quite like it available — but that particular facet is going to cut both ways. Users have had a lot of questions, and the Stadia team has at present provided some answers to how diverse facets of the service will work.

One thing they made clear upfront: Stadia isn't "Netflix for games." Stadia director of product, Andrey Doronichev, writes:

Stadia Pro is non "Netflix for Games" like some people have mentioned, a closer comparing would be like Xbox Live Gold or Playstation Plus. The Pro subscribers get 4K/HDR streaming, five.1 sound, sectional discounts and access to some complimentary games. Roughly one gratis game per month requite or take. Starting with Destiny 2 (yay!).

This comparing isn't very good either. Whether you like the idea of Stadia or not, what it offers — games that exist only in the cloud that you purchase at full price — is not the model that Microsoft, Sony, or any other company uses. The major companies that offering deject streaming services also offer physical downloads for local play or they offering a Netflix-style streaming service with a large dorsum catalog of titles.

Xbox Live Golden and PlayStation Plus are thematically similar to Stadia Pro in that yes, all three of these services are "value adds" on top of the base of operations platform experience. Stadia, nevertheless, is a very different service than what Sony and Microsoft offer. This changes the value proposition of Stadia Pro relative to Xbox Live or PlayStation Plus.

When Volition Google Kill It?

Another question gamers raised is whether Google is invested in the product in the way it needs to exist to encourage players to invest in it. This is non an unfair question. Every big company launches and retires products. Just few, if any, do so at the rate Google has.

As this article discusses, from just January to April 2019, Google retired the Chromecast Sound, removed YouTube annotations, abandoned Louisville KY'southward fiber installation, dropped IoT back up from Android Things, gutted its laptop and tablet sectionalisation, shut downwardly Google Allo, closed its Spotlight Stories VR studio, stopped accepting new users for the Goo.gl URL shortener, shut down IFTT back up, and ended both Google+ and Google Inbox.

The Google Cemetery lists 155 projects that Google has killed, as well as some statistics on its long-term behavior:

Google-Graveyard

2019 is shaping up to exist a very proficient year for shutdowns, though 2011 is the easy leader.

When asked whether there were whatsoever EoL guarantees associated with Stadia, Doronichev implied that gaming moving to the cloud is no different than the manner music, movies, photos, and documents have already done. He emphasized Google'southward investment to date in Stadia before declaring:

[Due west]e're committed to making Stadia a success. The games you buy on Stadia are yours to play. From day one nosotros'll support Takeout, and so that you can download your game metadata, including saves if you want to.

Of form, it'southward ok to doubt my words. Theres nothing I can say at present to make you lot believe if you don't. Simply what we tin do is to launch the service and continue investing in it for years to come up. Exactly how we've been doing with gMail, Docs, Music, Movies and Photos. That'southward exactly what we're committed to.

The actual question, even so, was: "If the Stadia service is discontinued, practise we know what (if anything) will happen with game purchases? Alternately, are they any minimum EoL guarantees, etc."

Donichev never actually answers the question, leaving the de facto answer: "No." He begins by drawing parallels to how movies, documents, and photos have moved to the cloud, but he ignores that this content has either generally been made available on streaming sites with Netflix-style content systems or that the cloud services in question are used for storing one's own personal information. Stadia isn't the same every bit these services. The fact that Google continues to try and elide that difference is troubling.

You can quit subscribing to Stadia Pro and notwithstanding access the games SEEAMAZON_ET_135 See Amazon ET commerce you've purchased (though non the titles y'all got for complimentary for being a subscriber). If Google shuts Stadia down, still, you'll lose admission to the titles you bought. This point is being confused in some spaces, with reports that you can "quit" the service and however go on the titles you previously got for being a subscriber. This does not appear to be the case. Youregainthese titles if you resubscribe, but that's not the same as having a version of a game you can download and go on if the company decides to shut its servers downward.

No company ramping up for a major launch is going to declare that they but intend to operate a service for the brusque term or imply no ane at Google is committed to making the launch a success. The fact that Google didn't have annihilation to share about an EOL guarantee could hateful that the company simply hasn't finalized that aspect of its service, just given the visitor's history, Google is one of the last companies I would bet on when it comes to the long-term question of whether it volition proceed a production in-marketplace.

Google Docs is a major component of Google'southward efforts to take on Microsoft Function equally a business concern productivity suite. Some of Google's other cloud services are straight tied to Android. Google Stadia, in contrast, is an attempt to take on Microsoft and Sony in an entirely new market with an unproven business model. If Stadia takes off, Google will go on it. If it doesn't — and keep in mind, we have no thought what metrics the company has set internally for what "takes off" means — then Google is 1 of the companies least likely to commit to iterative improvement or a marketing pivot. Google may rehabilitate some of its products, but its long-term tendency has e'er been to throw them abroad and launch something new. (This is how the company ended upwards with seven messaging platforms simultaneously at ane point).

If yous're the blazon of person to buy a game, beat information technology, and never play it once again, this run a risk may not matter to you. But evaluated in terms of its commitment to offering users long-term platform support, no Silicon Valley visitor I tin can call up of has done a worse task than Google. Some companies dig in and make products improve; some companies throw them out and start over. Google has e'er tended far more towards the latter than the sometime.

Other Points

Other tidbits from the AMA include:

Stadia game prices will be competitive with other platforms. Playing on a TV volition require a Stadia Controller ($69) and Chromecast Ultra ($69), though at that place's also Founders Edition for preorder that includes these components, three months of Stadia Pro, and a coupon to give Stadia Pro to someone else for the aforementioned fourth dimension menstruation for $130.

If you unsubscribe from Stadia and resubscribe afterwards, y'all volition regain access to games that yous claimed while you were a Pro subscriber. You will not receive games that were given away while y'all were unsubscribed.

Bluetooth audio back up will not be present at launch simply may be added at a later date. Support for audio through the Stadia Controller is via headphone jack only.

Google is committed to adding support for cross-play. The visitor is starting with adding back up to Chromecast Ultra but might enable the service on other devices. Andrey wants to add back up for iOS and Android also.

Accomplishment support volition be added post-launch simply non available on day i.

The free game per calendar month offer is for Pro users only. The game is yours to continue for every bit long as you remain a subscriber. Stadia Base does not include a game, only the option to buy games.

Google thinks ISPs volition raise data caps to allow services like Stadia to part without eating all your bandwidth. There will exist some unspecified tools and services for bandwidth management. Doronichev writes, "There's a lot of great ISPs offering plans with 100s of mbps or fifty-fifty gigabits and no caps," which is really beautiful, considering roughly xl percentage of the country, including myself, has admission to exactly 1 Internet service provider.

Family sharing is coming "early on next year."

On the whole, it'south a solid AMA, simply I'd look a year or three before investing any coin into the platform. Google has been far too willing in the by to impale products that were passionately loved by its user base for me to put whatsoever faith in the company not to impale Stadia at the drop of a hat. It has never cared about the fact that users depended on products like Hangouts or Reader when information technology fabricated the decision to kill them, and it doesn't deserve to be trusted to have started now — unless, of grade, the company is willing to explicitly guarantee it in writing. Thus far, Google has not done and so.

I will not be recommending that anyone buy products on Stadia unless Google is willing to provide a written guarantee that information technology volition provide the service for a minimum length of time. "Trust u.s.a.," is a flatly unacceptable answer at this bespeak.

Now Read: