Rethinking Google Stadia & Game Streaming

Everyone seems to think streaming your games online just like Netflix is just around the corner. With Google Stadia's launch being sometime in November that game streaming future is coming closer but as more details surface some people aren't so excited. It's no secret that Metal Jesus is a huge retro game collector that prefers owning physical copies of games. I'm not as hardcore a collector as Jesus, but my preference is to own a physical game but I do own quite a few games on Steam and other digital stores too. That said, Metal Jesus released a video recently where he talks about why he cancelled his Google Stadia pre-order. It seems his main reason is that the 4K bandwidth use would blow his data cap usage and cause him ISP overages. Frankly playing games all day in 4K streaming from Google Stadia could be a huge problem for people with data caps whereas 1080p compressed YouTube and Netflix isn't as it takes up way less bandwidth.

That said, I really do think the idea of playing your games anywhere regardless of hardware is an extremely compelling concept to people that want to play games and not worry about what they need to buy. Will Google Stadia be ready for everyone at launch? I don't think so but if it comes with a free game I might give it a shot. Frankly my biggest problem in gaming right now isn't that I don't have games to play in an accessible way, it's that I don't have the time to play them. But really, working on Tale of the White Wyvern is just as much fun to in the end, that's not a bad thing.

Travis Admin wrote on 08/30/2019 at 03:54pm

I have a few problems with it.

1. Look at killedbygoogle.com and consider things that don’t pan out get killed. Which is fine, but considering the massive investment required for this, if the service isn’t profitable it will die, and your purchases will be lost forever.

2. This isn’t Netflix for gaming like a lot of people compare it to. It’s more iTunes for gaming. If it was a subscription for a ton of games that I can play whenever I would be all over this honestly.

3. Even if they stay afloat for 50 years, they’ve removed games from people’s Google Play accounts when they have a dispute with a publisher. You could just lose $60 because your game’s publisher decides to stop selling on Stadia.

4. The any device idea is great until you consider, how the hell are you going to play Rage 2 or something on your phone? You’d at least need a controller and even then, full console/pc games are made to look good and play well on large screens.

5. The one time I could think this would be the most useful is traveling, but what percentage of hotel WiFi you’ve used has been decent?

6. You can stream 4K/HDR video on your tv and play a 4K disc, and you can tell a lot of difference in quality. The compression will always introduce some level of quality loss. So you’re always paying for an inferior product.

7. But mostly it all comes down to ownership. You don’t own the hardware or the software with Stadia, you’re just paying for a license to use the software, that Google can revoke at any time. Digital distribution on PC at least has ways around that. Valve has said that in the event that Steam closes down, they’ll provide a way to get your games before it shuts down. Gog games are yours to do whatever with.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/30/2019 at 04:27pm

All good stuff to consider. Destiny 2 is going free to play at some point and I hope that transfers to Stadia because i'd like to try Stadia for free. Since the HD version will be free, I hope some game comes I can try.

But yeah, all you mention is a good reason to think more about it.

Travis Admin wrote on 08/30/2019 at 04:51pm

But one thing I neglected to even mention in that comment: I’ve talked myself out of preordering a couple times already. I’m interested in it just from a technical standpoint and cool factor if nothing else.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/03/2019 at 06:12pm

Yep. Me too. I read something that the free tier won't get any kind of free games so to try it out we'll have to buy one which i'm really hesitant to do. Hopefully they add a free to play game at some point but that wouldn't make Google any money at all.

/shrugs I guess i'll just read the reviews of it at launch.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/03/2019 at 06:14pm

Mostly so I can try it before I buy anything. I don't get pre-orders for this. You're ordering something brand new, you can't try beforehand that people have done early reviews on where the servers were in the same building. Not like you can go to a store and try Stadia or anything.

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