
Is Google Stadia Doomed? - baud147258
https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=46628
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DKnoll
I'm in the Nvidia Geforce NOW beta at the moment. It's fantastic. If you want
to get in the beta it's running until early May. Invites are going out fairly
quick at the moment (a friend just got on with a one week wait).

Their pricing is not released yet (the beta is free with unlimited use, you
just have to disconnect and reconnect every 3 or so hours), it might be hourly
or monthly.

They do not provide the licenses for games, you just log into Steam (or one of
the other publishers launcher you have your games on) and play any of the
supported titles.

I am able to play every game (Conan Exiles, PUBG) I've thrown at it on max
settings and the servers are peered very well so it's very low latency to my
machine and also the game servers I am using.

It's crazy to be able to play modern games on ultra at 60+ fps with a near-
native experience on a machine I built 10 years ago.

These streaming game platforms definitely have legs.

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Nullabillity
Just as with any other X-as-a-service, it quickly becomes cheaper to just buy
it outright than to rent it.

And even if the pricing itself isn't that clear-cut, not having the constant
stress of "I'm spending $x/h, I had better enjoy every minute of it" (or, on
the flip side, "I'm already spending $x/mo, so I need to use it as much as
possible") makes it a lot easier to enjoy the experience.

~~~
DKnoll
If you play games a lot it will quickly become cheaper to buy a high end PC.
But if you're like me and only game a couple hours a week on average, it ends
up being cheaper than getting a new top-of-the-line PC every 3 years to
continue playing new games on max settings.

Right now it's free.. can't get any cheaper than that. :P

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Lowkeyloki
I'm also concerned about the fading concept of ownership. But, IMHO, the
author gives up most of his credibility by spending the first half of his
opinion piece picking a semantic argument over an advertising tagline.

~~~
noworld
It's funny how things come full circle. We're coming back to pumping quarters
into arcade machines.

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millstone
I'm not worried about the loss of ownership and the rise of "disposable games"
that the article identifies. Most games, like most movies, are good the first
time but not worth a second run, and that's completely OK. We shouldn't expect
"games as an art form" from AAA studios. So why not have a model that reflects
that reality?

I'll start worrying if indie games got sucked into this, to the point you
could no longer purchase them. Indie games are more likely to become high-
replay classics (Braid, FTL, Papers Please...) and don't require a powerful
gaming PC.

I'll also start worrying if ads start appearing in-game, and that seems like a
much more likely outcome.

~~~
davidjnelson
It depends on what you like to do. If you’re really into modding Bethesda
games you can easily do many playthroughs.

I guess with Stadia modding is no longer a thing, or only supported on a
limited and expensive basis using systems built directly into the game such as
Creation Club.

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tapoxi
This is an awful argument. The author begins by nitpicking at the "gaming is
not a box" argument, while Google has positioned Stadia as you targeting a
_datacenter_, multiple GPUs can be utilized at once and the very fast
networking between Stadia nodes is an ideal environment for middleware like
SpatialOS. That's what they mean by 'a box', it's not confined to one node.

There's the expected rant about digital ownership, but I imagine more people
will warm to this if it's a Netflix-like model, or if a Stadia purchase grants
you a downloadable copy of a game as well.

The rest is a complaint about games the author doesn't like, implying that
Google's main focus is Ubisoft and that Ubisoft makes games he forgets about.

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WestCoastJustin
Maybe think of it this way. How many people watch movies by going out and
renting/purchasing a dvd. I'm willing to bet a lot less than 10 years ago.
We're all doing it on-line. It sort of sounds like these cloud based gaming
services want to mirror what netflix is doing. Sure, this is already happening
to an extent.. but we still have to purchase the gaming console (dvd player vs
just using your computer/smart tv). I guess that will have implications for
the gaming blockbuster stores out there. If you look at it from that viewpoint
it seems almost inevitable that it will happen eventually. Plus, from a
consumer perspective you are isolated from having to cycle one less piece of
hardware all the time. 10 years from now, how many people will have dedicated
gaming consoles vs streaming online.. I'm willing to bet a lot more than
today. I own maybe a handful of physical dvds and movies now.. its is all
online. I'm totally happy about that too.

Same thing happened with cell phones. You used to have a walkman, dvd/cd
player, a camera, a calculator, a pager, flashlight, notepad, etc. Now, you
just have a phone.. add the gaming console to this list (and most other
electronics too).

~~~
deogeo
> how many people will have dedicated gaming consoles vs streaming online..

Why not try playing on a PC then? No need for anything 'dedicated'.

~~~
davidjnelson
Pc gaming is awesome. Not everyone can afford it though. If stadia can
actually get low latency 60fps ultra settings graphics on low end hardware
that will change everything.

One issue here though is exclusives. Many of the best games are console only,
or even ps4 only. I don’t see how Stadia could overcome that, but I guess
we’ll see.

~~~
baud147258
Is it possible to get 60fps with current network speeds?

~~~
deogeo
More importantly, is it possible to get the responsiveness of 60 fps with
current network _latency_.

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SideburnsOfDoom
The first part on if servers are box-shaped or not misses the point.

The future is not _a_ box, just like the present of running code in the cloud
is not _a_ box, it's a provider running _multiple_ boxes for you on demand,
and transparently updating and replacing them behind the scenes, with
individual boxes lying below the threshold of things that you need to care
about.

Same with serverless "Functions as a service". Of course there are still
servers. But you don't have to worry about them any more.

Running games in data centers won't live or die depending on the question "is
there a box or not?", rather it will depend on "is the latency acceptable?".

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badsectoracula
It is a joke.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
As a joke, I found it painful and pointless. Wrong target.

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m-p-3
Personally, I believe that the savings made on not needing a good computer and
sufficiant network bandwidth to run games with Stadia aren't worth it. And
there's nothing that will stop Google from pulling the plug on the service
like they did with other projects.

