Google Calls it Quits on Game Streaming, Shutting Down Stadia

[trparky]

Hi everyone,

We’ll be having a Stadia team meeting today, September 29th at 8:30 AM PT to share some important updates with everyone. Apologies for the short notice — we would appreciate it if you can please prioritise attending this meeting, or check in with your manager afterwards if you can’t make it. Details have been added to your calendars. This will be a virtual-only meeting, so please feel free to join from wherever you’re working today.

Best,

Phil

Wow. What a dick move on behalf of this "Phil".

 

[AusWolf]

Wow. What a dick move on behalf of this "Phil".

Yeah. "Thanks for coming to work today. Your efforts have been greatly appreciated. Oh and by the way, you're fired. So is the rest of your team. So is your manager. And his manager. Thanks again, bye."

 

[ModEl4]

Wow. What a dick move on behalf of this "Phil".

He's an overhyped ex-Sony exec (i remember they were promoting him since early Edge (the magazine) era.
But probably they announced the decision to him also the last minute (my guess)

 

[cvaldes]

Oh, I get it. However, I see Microsoft 365 as different from the others. With Microsoft 365, you're really paying for the 1 TB of OneDrive storage (or in the case of the family plan, 6 TBs with 1 TB being dished out for each user). The Office suite itself ends up just being the cherry atop the OneDrive sundae.

Well, there was no indication from your original post that you got it. A lot of people in these types of Q&A forums (not just here at TPU) make provocative comments without any frame of reference.

So Microsoft 365 is simply another subscription plan for a different service. It's still Something as a Service, just not Gaming. So whether you use 90 MB or 990 MB you're still paying the same amount.

Again, Microsoft found that charging a monthly subscription for cloud storage was more profitable in the long run than selling the standalone Office suite on DVDs at your local Office Depot store. Luckily, they still offer the standalone product. I have MS Office Home & Student. I don't use it a lot so my documents fit on my free iCloud tier. I could also use my venerable Dropbox Basic account if I wanted.

 

[trparky]

Well, there was no indication from your original post that you got it.

I get it, but I don't like it; in fact, I hate it. I understand the economics behind it. Case in point... Diablo Immortal. A game like that practically prints the green stuff by the semi-truck full and investors love that kind of sweet, sweet money rolling in with little to no effort.

I remember when you bought the game and that was that, you had it forever. Now? Not so much. And then with the rise of DRM, if they decide to take the DRM server offline your game goes with it.

 

[cvaldes]

I get it, but I don't like it; in fact, I hate it.

I remember when you bought the game and that was that, you had it forever. Now? Not so much. And then with the rise of DRM, if they decide to take the DRM server offline your game goes with it.

Well, take up another hobby. Maybe gardening?

I agree that DRM is distasteful. Remember that whole DIVX debacle? I hated it from the start and never bought into their stupid player or their stupid discs.

Somehow I think DRM for video games is going to stay though. Right now, you have the option of buying many titles DRM-free from GOG. They released Skyrim SE today.

And even if you owned the original CD of whatever game, do you have the hardware to run it? I see Twitch streamers play old console games on original hardware and a lot of those devices have clearly seen better days. Owning physical game media doesn't guarantee an enjoyable playing experience either.

A more realistic consumer gaming attitude would to not expect that anything you pay for will last forever. I wish it could but it probably won't.

I know from being on the Internet that a lot of people don't like having realistic attitudes which results in frequent disappointment. Nothing I can do about that.

By collectively complaining, maybe they can change video game companies' practices. But it won't happen overnight and probably not without protracted litigation.

 

[Punkenjoy]

PC gamers felt really threatened by stadia but it was just, like most of the cloud, an remote PC offering. There was never a real threat for people who prefer to own their hardware.

I tried stadia and since I have a powerful PC I didn't felt it was that good. But it had its niche. People with many children were able to share games and play together using stadia without having to get multiple console or gaming PC. A simple Chromebook was enough. You could share your Pro games and purchased games with your family. That was a cheap alternative for a lot of people

At least they are refunding people but that is an option that is gone for a lot of people with less wealth

 

[Deleted member 185088]

It won't be missed, unless they break the laws of physics and more importantly ensure decent internet everywhere (given the greed and incompetence of telecommunications companies this seems even more impossible) game streaming will never be able to offer decent playing experience for most games.

 

[Laykun]

Show me a business case where any of these services make sense. SPOILER: It doesn't.

 

[Easo]

Good thing I never considered it seriously and thus never tried it. Indeed, writing was on the wall.

 

[Imouto]

I highly doubt that. It isn't even a streaming service either.

I doubt that.

First of all EGS is not a cloud streaming GaaS platform. It's a storefront both for one-time software purchases as well as free-to-play titles. Note the Epic Games is also a publisher as well as a GaaS company (making money off of subscriptions as well as one-time purchases).

Google's primary business is collecting users' online behavior and selling it to advertisers, a completely different business model.

Moreover, Epic Games isn't some shoestring operation. It's about 40% owned by Chinese media giant Tencent Holdings. Now while no company is "too big to fail" I'm guessing that their Chinese equity holders aren't going to let Epic Games flushed down the toilet.

Ignore EGS's weekly freebies, their main focus is to grow properties like Fortnite which provide steady revenue.

It's a division going nowhere while burning literal tons of cash. Epic already started deinvesting on it with low profile freebies and far less temporal exclusivities.

 

[BorisDG]

Even the Wii U had longer lifespan.

 

[trsttte]

Epic does not rake in the big bucks from Unreal Engine. They waive Unreal Engine royalties on games that use it until revenue reaches $1 million. If the games are published on the Epic Game Store, they won't collect even if those games are big sellers.

Again, Epic takes a percentage of game sales on the Epic Game Store. This was heavily covered during their litigation with Apple. They aren't giving games away from free. They are also a publisher and thus take a cut of sales from those titles.

Their big play is for GaaS, which in practice translates to ongoing subscriptions, in-game purchases, microtransactions, etc. Fortnite is free to play, they make their money from cosmetics, etc.

My guess is that the PC video game universe can support multiple storefronts. Note that Epic Games has a mobile presence on Android. They had an EGS app on iOS but following their unsuccessful litigation with Apple, the end result is that they got kicked out of the iOS/iPadOS market.

Amusingly, Apple users can still play Fortnite via GeForce NOW both on iDevices as well as Mac.

One of the major factors that has driven Unreal Engine success is its portability: desktop, console, mobile, and VR.

I know all that, my point is just that they are dumping money on getting market share and their revenue is not large enough to cover it. At some point the strategy will need to change or they'll eventually go bust (I think 2024 was a number trown around at the time of the lawsuit, it also varies a lot but anyway, the point is they can't give free stuff away forever).

Also fortnite has had a good run, but until when will that last? There's surely space for multiple pc game stores and Epic is a good business but sooner than later that could change very very quickly.

NVIDIA's GFNow is worst, though, and they definitely don't have the deep-pockets compared to Google but NVIDIA do architect the most costly part of the hardware though.

The only problem with GeForce Now is copyright cartels. Seriously, there's no reason they need to have a drip feed of available titles instead of everything*(small exceptions excluded) just working, you're just renting server space to run the games you "own". You can roll your own solution on different services (probably with less performance, higher lag and no game cache for quick installs) and no one would bat an eye, but because Nvidia is pretty big everyone wants a piece of the honeypot even when they're not entitled to it.

From the streaming solutions it's the only one I find remotely appealing, contrary to xcloud or playstation (whatever it's called now) for example you just play your library on rented hardware instead of depending on the available catalog from the service (and how long they retain the license).

 

[cvaldes]

It's a division going nowhere while burning literal tons of cash. Epic already started deinvesting on it with low profile freebies and far less temporal exclusivities.

Well, at least they're still putting engineering resources into the EGS application. I get prompted regularly to update the software.

 

[GunShot]

The only problem with GeForce Now is copyright cartels.

The only and the most important destructive problem.

No pubs/devs titles (that could be removed at ANY unannounced given day and/or time), no need for GFNow.

 

[Imouto]

Well, at least they're still putting engineering resources into the EGS application. I get prompted regularly to update the software.

Google was announcing new games for Stadia this week.

 

[cvaldes]

Google was announcing new games for Stadia this week.

So Google senior management didn't leak any hints of the service's demise to the staff until the 11th hour rather than tell them months ago that things weren't looking good.

There are plusses and minuses to both ways.

The best and brightest employees usually see the writing on the wall a long time in advance. Those are usually the first to leave -- not the last -- and they have the best opportunities to find more rewarding challenges elsewhere.

My guess is that most employees of this group probably were just waiting for it to happen. It's about quarter's end and there may have been some sort of missed milestone that ended up being the final straw.

 

[RedBear]

Looking at the video game industry in the old paradigm of a desktop PC with a discrete graphics card running Windows or a console like Xbox is antiquated.

Most gaming revenue is coming from mobile these days.

People playing games on their smartphones really don't want 50 GB downloads and see their batteries drain in an hour. Even Minecraft on iOS is nearly a 1 GB download.

I can't say that I play many mobile games, but there are certainly those like Honkai Impact 3rd that are getting close to 50GB, that game currently takes 19.94 GB on my phone.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Wow. What a dick move on behalf of this "Phil".

Yeah. "Thanks for coming to work today. Your efforts have been greatly appreciated. Oh and by the way, you're fired. So is the rest of your team. So is your manager. And his manager. Thanks again, bye."

So Google senior management didn't leak any hints of the service's demise to the staff until the 11th hour rather than tell them months ago that things weren't looking good.

There are plusses and minuses to both ways.

The best and brightest employees usually see the writing on the wall a long time in advance. Those are usually the first to leave -- not the last -- and they have the best opportunities to find more rewarding challenges elsewhere.

My guess is that most employees of this group probably were just waiting for it to happen. It's about quarter's end and there may have been some sort of missed milestone that ended up being the final straw.

This is, for better or worse, just how things tend to go when an entire operation gets the axe. I've been on the cut side twice, and they ran it the same way; no news 'til day of. One small (<50 employees) and one medium (<500) concern. You need people to keep showing up, and to not sabotage anything ahead of time.

 

[cvaldes]

This is, for better or worse, just how things tend to go when an entire operation gets the axe. I've been on the cut side twice, and they ran it the same way; no news 'til day of. One small (<50 employees) and one medium (<500) concern. You need people to keep showing up, and to not sabotage anything ahead of time.

From a practical standpoint, it's impossible to keep up morale if everyone knows that some people are going to get the axe regardless of whether you're one of the safe ones or not.

Hell, I worked at one company that said they were going to institute a Reduction In Force (RIF) and some people were gleefully waving, "Pick me! Pick me!" in the hope that they would get the termination package. The ones who are left behind are the ones who have to pull the oars harder unless the entire business unit is shut down.

Some people want to stay, others want to leave; RIFs never give everyone what they want.

Personally I prefer making the decision myself rather than letting someone else choose. Better to walk away on your own rather than being handed your hat and shown the door.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

already knew that gaming streaming services won't take off that well considering all the marketing BS these corpo spent on it.

 

[cvaldes]

PC Gamer is reporting that Stadia game developers were caught off guard at today's announcement:

Stadia game developers had no idea Google was killing Stadia

Here's how the games industry is reacting to the news that Stadia is going away.

www.pcgamer.com

So it's not just Google employees who were kept in the dark. It was also Stadia partners. One developer even said that their game was due to launch in 2 days time on Stadia.

Google can offer new positions for displaced Stadia employees but they can't do anything for game developer employees who are part of teams assigned to a dead platform.

 

[sepheronx]

PC Gamer is reporting that Stadia game developers were caught off guard at today's announcement:

Stadia game developers had no idea Google was killing Stadia

Here's how the games industry is reacting to the news that Stadia is going away.

www.pcgamer.com

So it's not just Google employees who were kept in the dark. It was also Stadia partners. One developer even said that their game was due to launch in 2 days time on Stadia.

Google can offer new positions for displaced Stadia employees but they can't do anything for game developer employees who are part of teams assigned to a dead platform.

Couldn't those games be released on any platform for PC?

 

[bug]

It won't be missed, unless they break the laws of physics and more importantly ensure decent internet everywhere (given the greed and incompetence of telecommunications companies this seems even more impossible) game streaming will never be able to offer decent playing experience for most games.

You're not looking at the big picture when you say "most games". Anything that's not a fast-paced FPS or arcade game, can easily deal with the added latency.

 

[diopter]

Great news!