Quick, pop all the party streamers!
Well I concede defeat, the big boy finally did it and proved me wrong, he proved all the haters wrong, he went up against Apollo Creed and managed to go the distance until the bell, Stadia has managed to last until it's second birthday. What a time to be alive, where you can come up with the single dumbest premise for an entertainment paradigm-shift humanely possible, squander all of your opportunities to hit a big audience right out of the gate, operate at a loss months if not years straight, and still manage to stick around just because you've gotten so quiet that your parent company has forgotten you exist. You might think that's a little assumptive of me to say, but when was the last time you heard Stadia bought up in the news regarding anything? Heck, people like me can't even play the thing without the 5G service update in our area yet, how did Stadia imagine their service was destined to replace the main consoles when it doesn't even run in most of the world yet? But alas, they're eating cake and blowing out candles so perhaps I'm the wrong one.
Stadia started out life in a very weak place, trying to slam against the traditional model of buying consoles then games with a decidedly worse deal where one pays a subscription and then still buys the games on top of that. But in many ways, it's influence has worked out similar to that of Movie Pass for the film-going world, in that they caused a disruption so large that it allowed others to succeed where they have faltered. In this case, a company with a slightly better understanding of the industry and what it wants, Microsoft, stepped in and created their Gamepass. Whereas for Stadia one can power their cool new games on the Google server farms (provided you have the sort of beefy connection to run that) Microsoft have a service which isn't as large as that, but has a greater selection of games to choose from because they've been in the industry for just so much longer. Doesn't take a genius to work out which platform sounds better to the average joe.
The great conceit, the one thing which my pauper plebeian brain can't wrap my head around when it comes to Stadia, is the way one has to pay for a subscription in order to use the service as intended and then buy your games at full price on top of that. And in the many recent months Stadia has begun to actually offer free games to their subscribers in order to off-set that, but that's something you wouldn't know unless you actively follow Stadia because they spent all their public credibility points back when they were being hard-headed and stubborn at the beginning of all this. Microsoft's Gamepass, on the otherhand, asks for a subscription in order to introduce you to a library of hundreds of rotating free games, some of which are brand new, that you can run off of any Microsoft friendly device (which is most devices) and even stream from their server farms if you can cut it. The value proposition collision seems cut and dry to me, but I can respect how in year 2 there's actually the budding of competition arising there. Microsoft still have the better idea hands down, but Google and slowly and expensively coming around to the basics.
Of course, if you actually ask around at the 'visionaries high office' around Stadia, I'm sure they'll have a much more 'worthy' and 'prim' explanation for what went wrong. In their eyes, I'll bet that the story of their birth will tell of a thrash of inspiration slamming against the dam of primitive, Neanderthal 'old think', where basic plainsfolk just couldn't figure out how to put down their hoes and tills long enough to realise that physical games don't rule the world anymore, and how this is a world for the digital realms now. I'm not exaggerating, give it five years and that's the tale those old execs will be swapping around their cocktails parties whilst snobbishly palming their fourth martini glass. Let me be a screaming voice of dissent from the slums outside and say "No." The whole 'physical vs digital' debate is something that was birthed so very long before Stadia was a twinkle in papa Google's Milkman's eye, Steam was it's greatest advocate, and in fact I don't even believe Stadia factored into the conversation at all with their presence given how the idea of discless current-gen consoles has raised more eyebrows and discussion well after the Stadia 'craze'.
After all of that shade being wantonly dumped upon their door, I cannot in good faith leave things without saying that Stadia has managed to do the impossible and secure their cult members firmly- I mean 'cultivate an audience'! (Yeah... I mean that...) The Stadia Reddit has a healthy number of members, well healthier than dead, and they are positive and active pretty much every day. If anyone has a question about how to make the service run right, what games they should try, or anything like that; someone on the Reddit will happily point things out to them or give them the old run down, which is a damn sight more welcoming than most over gaming communities on the net. Of course, god help you if you have any criticism, because they have skin about as thick as gnat's wing and will assume you've sent out a hit on their mother if you so much as suggest that Stadia doesn't quite meet the value proposition that it should do by year 2.
Speaking 'of' that value proposition, does anyone else feel like there's a pretty big part of the Stadia promise still missing? I mean, there was a good reason why interest started to get serious once people found out it was google putting their weight behind this project with the amount of platform crossover that would promote. The most basic of which, that the team absolutely did not frame as a hypothetical and even showed it working live on stage, was an interactive element with Youtube gaming wherein someone could watch a game and then immediately jump into that game in order to play it for themselves using an integrated prompt. (Again, provided your ISP doesn't kick down your door demanding rent for the trouble) We have nothing like that in Year 2 and it baffles my mind because, to be clear, that single feature would have been revolutionary to the brand.
As much as I hate to even bring this up for fear of putting ideas in the wrong heads, it's pretty common knowledge that you don't exactly need a good idea in order to be successful. If Youtube had a mandatory widget involved, which popped up for everyone on Youtube gaming to, at the very least, tell users that if they had Stadia they could play this game, (the button could look like the Stadia logo in order grind that symbol into people's minds) that alone would have been enough to skyrocket Stadia numbers. Youtube is huge, and the number of eyes that cross it's gaming content numbers in the tens of millions, if those people had seen that Stadia prompt everyday for a year, they'll never forget about the platform and many will have tried it out to see what the fuss was about. Most would gawk at the amount of Internet the thing demands, but some would be able to play and Stadia would still be talked about nowadays.
Instead we're left at the weird position we are now where Stadia is the butt of perhaps every single accessibility related joke in the gaming market. (What's that, Cyberpunk 2077 launched with all the momentum of a lame horse? Well at least it runs buttery smooth on Stadia!) Limping to their second birthday isn't so much a testament to their hardwork and dedication to seeding a longlasting and sustainable model in the market, but more a statement for how much spare money Google can have siphoned from it's profit's without realising it. I'll bet the Stadia heads try their best to sneak their addendums on the budget report in the hopes that management don't spot them and think "Wait, what the hell are we paying these guys for again?" Still, surviving is worth some small celebration to speak of I guess, even when it's not exactly 'living'.
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