sTadiA hAs tHE GaMEs yOu'rE lOoKing foR

Why won't you just stop? It's already dead!

Google's Stadia has had quite the rough go of things, wouldn't you say? Here is a platform that placed itself at direct competition, not just to the three big console developers of the gaming landscape, but to the very concept of gaming hardware in general. This alone has managed to garner quite a bit of criticism from just about anyone who glances their direction and starts to ask pertinent questions about issues like software ownership, longevity and the right to modify owned files. (Still no word on that last one, Google. Will you folk ever address that?) I'll not lie and conceal my own role in some of that scepticism, for it's true, I don't like the prospect of Stadia and what it is trying to enforce upon the gaming world. But then, I don't like the concept of streaming services in general, who remove practically all licencing rights from the consumer so that what we are allowed to watch is forever at the whim of the warring licencors behind these platforms. (It's just a huge mess and I don't want that for the world of gaming.)

Luckily, at least for me, Stadia hasn't quite rode in on the streaming service wave as they quite hoped that they would. Sure, behind closed doors they might argue that this is fine "Netflix didn't hit it off big from the getgo" but anyone with a working frontal cortex knows that it's the height of hubris to judge the success of your venture off of the literal zeitgeist that pioneered the movement; from a scientific angle there are so many unrepeatable factors tied into that process that it's mind boggling. And so that ultimately leaves us with a conundrum of what to do with Stadia. It's a service that has received a lot of flak, has failed to deliver on promises and is now relying on the tried-and-true strategy of literally giving subscriptions away to people in order to get them hooked like some sort of desperate street pusher.

But the folks at Stadia are never one's to lose hope, I'll give them that, and despite the dire predictions from anyone with even the slightest shred of foresight, they have persisted. Even as damning headline after damning headline gets scrawled about their failures, Stadia still assures it diminishing supporters that everything is okay, they have plans for the future; "50 new games." they cry, "by the end of the year we'll have 50 new games!" Of course, this ties into the rallying cry that they've been insisting since launch, that 'Stadia has the games you're looking for'. (Something you may remember from that, frankly insulting, advert they debuted last year.) This hasn't panned out at all for the first year as Stadia managed to snag a pathetic stable of games, most of which were years old, and have more games in their 'We promise folder' than in their 'we did it' one.

Things started to look up for Stadia, however, when they announced their first real exclusive from a title that isn't a small indie game no one cares about. (Sorry, Gylt) Now, if you've spent any amount of time here you'll know my feelings on 'exclusives'; they're a desperate and transparent way to score points with 'the community' at the cost of accessibility to the audience. (Why bother prove your superiority by actually establishing a superior platform when you can just chuck money around and strongarm an audience?) But Stadia needs all the help it can get right now so I say; screw it, let them flounder. Of course this game was the latest entry in the cult classic 'Serious Sam' franchise (Which I have never played, by the by), 'Serious Sam 4'. Now even I have to admit that this was a big deal on Stadia's part, 'Serious Sam' is a, pardon the pun, serious name in the gaming world and it shows something that Stadia have the pull to secure this long-awaited (I assume) title to their ranch.

At least that's the story that Stadia wanted to paint, the truth is actually a lot dumber. You see, whilst 'Serious Sam 4, Stadia exclusive' makes for attention grabbing headlines, in actuality the Serious Sam games is more of a PC exclusive, because it will be launching on Steam too. Now as this is a franchise that was initially spawned on the PC, which built up it's fandom on the PC, this might be a bit of a headscratcher for you; "then where does the exclusivity kick in?" Well on console, of course! Serious Sam will be missing a console release for the first half year but coming to the PC. (Geez, I wonder how much Stadia paid for that bum deal.) What this means is that the Serious Sam publishers are getting paid not to release their game on two consoles that are about to become obsolete, and instead are selling to the folk who are most likely their target audience anyway. (That's obviously Steam customers, by-the-way, not Stadia.) Sad trombone for that absolute five-head move, Stadia.

But this isn't the only string that Stadia have had their sleeves, oh not by a long shot. Remember, folk, they have '50 new games' coming sometime this year and that'll surely be what it takes to finally put their service on the map. Right? (Then they'll finally catch those Duke boys and stop those meddling kids, and that mangy mutt too!) Afterall, Stadia still managed to snag a day one version of the biggest release of the entire year- wait, it's 2020 so we can officially say; of the decade; Cyberpunk 2077. Woah, guys, how did you snag that gig? Actually, I'd imagine that it was more of a move on CDPR's part as they've always championed giving consumer's choices, but Stadia benefits all the same! Finally they can play in the big boy pool alongside the powerhouses of the industry and brag about day-one access to a AAA juggernaut. Wouldn't it be such a cruel twist of fate for something unexpected to happen that would prevent this olive branch to the Stadia platform from taking place?

Well as of right now we do not know exactly what happened, but consistent to the ruinous Stadia saga, Cyberpunk has been pushed back elusively on Google's fledgling service. You just cannot make this stuff up, can you? The biggest game of the decade lands on your system only to be hit with a delay, but only on your platform. What sort of message does that send out to the folks who are interested? That they should spend their money literally anywhere else, and if they are after the unmatched fidelity that can only be found from streaming a game from a uber-powerful server farm, why not try the much more reputable Nvidia Geforce Now which still reports to be receiving Cyberpunk on day one. (And offers an inherently better deal by allowing folk to stream their purchased Steam games, rather than having to pay for access to buy Stadia exclusive versions.)

You just cannot make up the level of misfortune that has struck the Stadia brand literally every single step of it's way, to the point where I'm tempted into slight sympathy. (But only slight.) At the end of the day, however, it's hard to predict what sort of tangible effect this will really have on Stadia's growth rate, especially as the biggest litmus for the Stadia community, it's Reddit, tends to err on the side of brainless bootlicking more often than not. (I swear that entire Reddit feels doomed to becoming a 'in memoriam' site in no time flat.) At the end of the day, however, this just speaks to the mood of the industry. "Well there's some problems with the Stadia launch, but that's not the priority, no one plays there anyway." If that's the attitude that the famously embracing folk over that CDPR are holding, then imagine what sort of conversations are happening at the more streamlined folk over at EA or Activison. (Or to be more accurate, the conversations that aren't happening. "Stadia who?") Does this spell the end for Stadia? No, Stadia spelt the end for Stadia long before it ever launched, this is all just the prolonged stable period of deterioration whilst we wait for the doctors to finally pull this brain-dead project off of life support. (Too dark? Meh.)