Stadia has died

 The Stadia is dead, long live the rest of the Industry!

Oh, there it is! You know, I actually thought I had another twelve months ahead of me before I would have cause to talk about Google Stadia again but as it turns out the big G were just waiting to pull the plug for so long that they didn't even tell their internal teams. I'm being serious, Stadia literally just unveiled their brand new UI layout the very same day that management turned around and declared the service would be shutting down in January 2023. Although I'm assuming this decision had been made quite some time ago from the way that literally every triple A game that was announced this year just sort of forgot to include Stadia on their line-up of upcoming platforms. Of course, if you're one of the common sense gamers out in the world with any sort of knowledge in how Googles 'side projects' always end, you knew from the beginning that this was going to happen because despite being under the biggest conglomerate megacorp in the world right now, Google is the quintessential embodiment of the guy who starts things and never finishes them.

There's a whole website out there dedicated to detailing the graveyard of services started and killed off by Google because the implementation was poor, the idea was bad, and Google don't know how to turn their ideas around and make them good. If they hadn't managed to stumble into establishing the biggest Search Engine in the world, these executives and idea creators would be lucky to be flogging vintage vinyl's from the parking lot of a HMV. They're passionless, innovation dry, clueless, moronic simpletons without a glimmer of the effort and sacrifice requisite to establish oneself as a staple of an already defined industry. Epic Games, for every mistake they've made, know how to keep people coming back to them on a daily loop with their Free Games offer and agonisingly slow paced system improvements along with the odd, painful, game exclusive. Google thinks if they just throw money at their new studio it'll figure it out eventually. But not too much money; gotta keep 'em sweating!

Google is going to try and twist perceptions and declare themselves successful pioneers who revolutionised the world of streaming games before they fell upon their own sword, and in the team's defence they did popularise the concept to the world, as well as sour most of that world on the idea by presenting the least favourable customer service program ever. But Microsoft and Nvidia had already been making their own streaming systems before Google, and theirs are going to continue after Stadia is buried and in the ground, so who's the real trailblazers here and who is the lighting thief, stumbling into the party that was already starting up and declaring themselves the host? Make no mistake at any point of this, not only did Google change nothing in the industry's trajectory, they also achieved nothing to carve out a place for themselves. Don't listen to their silver-tongued backwards speak they're already cooking up for investors: this was a failure.

And the team have all but admitted it in the most backhanded and disowning manner possible. Apparently the adoption of the console hasn't been quite what they expected, but they also claim that the current global financial downturn is responsible for the shuttering of doors. Oh, is that the case? Now how does that make sense when Stadia launched in November 2019; before the pandemic? That was an entire year and some generous change that their platform existed as a route for people staying at home to play games, which so many of them did, and yet through all of that Stadia couldn't secure a reliable enough user base to subsidise the first economic hiccup? Sounds like the company had no legs to stand on even if you do believe their misdirection and don't just conclude that their business model lacked the wide spread appeal they like to pretend it had.

Oh, and if we're talking about causes of the platform's failure; how about the absolute idiocy of the people buying game ports? These absolute gibbering morons were going around paying tens of millions per game, presumably under the stipulation of streaming exclusivity but what exactly is that worth? Stadia themselves knew the streaming landscape was sparse as it was, there wasn't much of a competitive audience to steal from with such deals. But game's companies would certainly be more than willing to happily take advantage of vastly over-estimated deals offered by the rubes of this equation, because why not? Get that bag from people who own so much money it's value is meaningless to them. It's a victimless heist! 

How about the failure of Stadia to provide the minimum 100 games per year that they promised, probably because they were too busy overspending on years old triple A games instead of spending wisely were it would have mattered? Or, as Eurogamer deftly put it, proposing ownership prices in a platform that didn't feel like ownership? (Nicely phrased; I guess that's why they're the professionals) Maybe, at some point, their failure to accrue a sustainable audience was more down to any of those factors instead of the phantoms they went to set up in order to pretend that their conduct was entirely blameless in this mess-up. But I'm just spit-balling here; who could possible say why yet another Google start-up has winded up in the graveyard.

Everyone said that this would happen, which is why investing money, or time, was a fools game that we wanted to stay away from. Google are committing to refunding games, but the form that will take is unclear for the moment. The Stadia Reddit (as gloomy as you would except) seem to have proposed the dystopian ending where those refunds come in Google store credit. A truly depressing and insulting conclusion if it does go that way, but oh-so fitting for the comedy of errors that is Stadia. But even with those refunds, there's no getting back that lost time investment for save games and Stadia-only online accounts. There's potential for a fix around getting back save data for single player games to be ported over to a more normal version of that same game, but online games are a wash. Oh, and the Stadia controller doesn't work on anything other than Stadia for the moment. A firmware update really needs to free that up.

Google Stadia is the disaster that all the world saw coming and no one should really be surprised by. And if there's anyone I feel the least sorry for in all of this, even if they're the most negatively effected, it's the bloody mindless Stadia stans. For years they shoved their arses up at the world and declared us backwards haters with no idea what we're talking about, pointing to the infrastructure of Stadia and asking how any company could screw that up. And we would just point to every other thing Google has screwed up and said "Don't let them do that to you." Now they've lost their avenue to the gaming world and we're supposed to feel sorry for them? Well I don't. All my emotion is wrapped feeling exasperated at Google for wasting everyone's time again and Phil Harrison for screwing up PS3, Xbox One and now Stadia with his mismanagement. This guy can't keep failing upwards; he can't keep getting away with it!

Stadia's Penultimate act

 Lifesupport: Activate

I have put this off for as long I need to in order to expunge that vile sense of smug satisfaction I've gotten from this news, because one should never celebrate the downturn and slow death of a project people believed and trusted in; but after years of trying to advise an audience that vitriolically condemns you at every step, the smugness feels somewhat fair. That being said I want to be respectful, because I know that there are people out there who really did invest their time and money until this, and unlike with those who dropped thousands on Star Citizen never once caring about how blatantly they were feeding a nepotistic engine of cannibalistic feature-creep gone wild, I can understand and sympathise with adopters. Google Stadia made sense in it's premise, it can from a company with the sort of size to make it work, and there's no sensible reason why it wouldn't be a flagship service that Google sticks behind and champions far into the future until the infrastructure of the world is ready to maintain such a trailblazing concept. But we don't always live in a world of fairness, now do we?

Over the past few days we've been hearing word, mostly derived from industry sources because Google is nothing if not incessantly reticent to be openly communicative with it's users, that Stadia is quietly being scaled back in prospects from being the new frontier of gaming to settling into just an infrastructure that other, more established, game companies use to get into the whole 'cloud gaming' market. So not the worst news in the world: it's not like Stadia is planning to shut down overnight and take all the hundreds of games people have purchased with them, but not the glowing endorsement of health that the community has been longing for so long now. These are people who were promised dedication by Google to creating an infrastructure that wouldn't just rival, but would be set to succeed the big companies of today, shirking the physical aspects of gaming altogether to prove how much more promise cloud gaming would hold. This meant exclusivities, building a huge library of games and even the creation of endlessly ambitious first party titles that would dwarf the ambitions of traditional media software. Stadia was meant to be the future.

Of course the problems with this concept were clearly sprawled on the wall for anyone with the mind to see it; Google maintains a terrible track record for keeping up with it's ancillary ideas and has killed a stupid number off completely unless they become immediate successes. Stadia didn't seem to have any plan for tackling real infrastructure issues that were destined to limit growth, such as 5G coverage and strict ISP data limits. (Not that I can really say I know what Google could have done about either of this massive issues, but choosing "Do nothing and see what happens" isn't typically seen as setting oneself up for success.)  I mean you have to know things aren't heading for a meteoric rise when the biggest story of last year is about how they finally got around to adding a search bar to the store after a year. (To be fair, they didn't exactly need a search bar for the thirty or so games they launched with, but Google took way to long to catch up with that.)

Developers have left the company or been reassigned to other sectors within Google, all first party development methods have ceased, Stadia hasn't had an exclusive on it practically since launch, and to this day, amazingly, they haven't even hinted at the possibility of working on that Youtube crossover functionality they showed off working in the announcement stream. Possibly the single best way they could have marketed this platform, by piggybacking off the (now second) largest video streaming platform on the internet, and they never once got around to it. Sometimes it's hard to tell if Google ever took it's own platform seriously what with how lacklustre everything ended up being. I mean, the only thing worse would be if people actually took this seriously and got burned in the process.

One of the most headscratcher subreddits on the platform, the Stadia Reddit has been very divided on the news that the platform which was meant to be the future of gaming is quietly being relegated to a third-party stepladder. On one hand, for the first time since it's inception, we're seeing people finally blink the gunk from their eyes and see the world for what it is- realising that Google lacks the love and care to stick by a game's platform long enough for it to become a contender, let alone a competitor. And the others? Well you remember what the first stage of grief is, right? I'll let you quickly play through Majora's Mask in your head again to remember. Yes, the rest of the Reddit is deeply entrenched in denial syndrome to a near-terminal degree. I'd question how anyone could delude themselves so fully, but after the past few years we've had that's no longer some grand mystery to all of us, now is it?

"This was part of the plan all along!" Many posts seem to say "This leak is a bunch of propaganda nonsense, nothing is being scaled down whatsoever!" And I suppose that as we currently stand in a state of 'their word versus ours', it can be easy to buy into that belief and remain in the comforting dream-world where Google is your best friend gently caressing it's valuable tiny community who doesn't even come close to paying the bills for them. You know, just 'cause. But then think about what these defenders are actually saying. They're claiming that all of these journalists and reports are sacrificing their reputations to coordinated a false narrative in order to attack a long-disgraced video game platform that no one of the outside even thinks of more than once a year. And their evidence? Because Google Stadia's Twitter said so. Kinda.

Yes, Stadia recently rallied on their Twitter about how they're still dedicated to making games and keeping the greatness of the platform growing, and we know they're trustworthy because of how honest and open they've been throughout every step of this process. Right? And then there's the news of trademark filings in new countries that Stadia supporters take as a vote of confidence towards the platform's imminent expansion. Or it's just an expansion of coverage that will further fit their plans to convert this games platform into a tool for paying developers, as those developers would probably want to reach as far across the globe as they can. But what's a thing like 'logic' worth to those that have spent the past year crying about the perfection of gaming's latest platform being treated like a laughing stock? They've been mocked past the point of rational reasoning; they're running Chaos logic now, baby! 

And so we're left with a state where the Google Stadia team have quietly abandoned it's lofty dreams in favour of this holding pattern which will make it easier for them to sneak some profits out of the infrastructure, even if it won't exactly further the team to the original goal of changing the gaming landscape. I've called this 'Stadia's Penultimate act' because this reprioritisation is indicative of an impending hibernation state for Stadia, regardless to what the ill-informed interns running the Twitter seem to think, that will likely either be feasibly endless or will last about a year or two with no update before Google pulls the plug and hopes no one notices. Still, at least those who've followed Stadia up until now can look forward to enjoying their games for however long that lasts. It's such a shame too. Maybe Stadia would have been able to run an actually good version of Crackdown 3...

Stadia: "We're still alive, stop asking"

 This was a triumph

We all like to believe the best in ourselves. It's healthy, we are told, to smile in the mirror and say "everything's going to go great today" each and every morning in order to train yourself to expect the good things in life. It's unhealthy, these same people say, to dwell on failures and impending hardships, at least not when they are beyond our control and nothing we can do will prevent them. I recognise these general beliefs and do accept them, even if I practice their exact inverse myself, which could be defined by some as Cognitive Dissonance. You know what else could be defined as such? Performing all the telltale signs of wrapping up your failed venture whilst wagging your finger and saying that "Things are going great!" whenever challenged. Which is it? Are you championing on or succumbing to the inevitable waves of The Deep? Lie through your teeth to the public if that's what makes you happy, but for the love of god figure that out within yourself else you're going to be in real deep crap when the hangman's number gets called.

Just recently the conversation sparked by Google Stadia's Platform and Games Marketing Lead, Nate Ahern, seemed to perfectly replicate the 'this is fine' meme during an interview with 'is a real site even though it sounds like a parody' Gamesindustry.biz. (I think it's the 'dot biz', just sounds weird.) Nate rocked to the interview and lived up to his job title spectacularly by dispelling any and all concerns around Google Stadia's long term viability through labelling those dubious thoughts as the rhetoric of "nonbelievers". (Wait, he said that? He used the words "Nonbelievers"? Wow, and I thought the Reddit for Stadia just seemed like a cult.) Now we all know that this here is a man professionally employed to lie to people, making him an absolutely indispensable element to both this industry and society at large who's life absolutely has purpose and value. Nah, that's all a bunch of crap and so is his talking points, but seeing as how we've seen a little glimpse behind the curtain towards how Google communicates with it's Stadia teams, I'm willing to bet that the messaging we're hearing here mirrors that within closed doors. So with that assumption; How's Stadia feeling nowadays?

"We're well on our way to over 100 new games launching on Stadia in 2021" Ahern said, presumably followed by an expectant pause for imaginary clapping. 100? 100 my man? So that'll bring Stadia's library up to, what, 200? This is supposed to be the 'be all end all' of gaming solutions, powered with tech so advanced that it simply cannot be beat and is capable of running feasibly any single software you could ever choose to upload. You should be dripping with games off of your service, you should have games coming out of your eyeballs, but you're sitting at 100. Why? I'll tell you; it's because Google, fools that they are, don't care about the plethora of talented smaller games out there which form the backbone of the industry. All they want is the big titles with the fancy studio credits to back them up and they're willing to, as leaks have shown, pay through the nose for those games. The same money that went towards a Red Dead 2 port could have secured ports for a thousand indie titles for Stadia. You seeing the problem here?

He also had the gall to tout "We're continuing to make Stadia a great place to play games on devices you already own." Oh, he must be talking about the way in which Stadia, within the past month, added a search bar to it's storefront. After a year in service. Now comes the Searchbar. From the company owned by Google. (Great strides guys, great strides) Now I know all the jokes were already made at Stadia's expense, but in all fairness I suppose they didn't exactly need a search bar for the beginning of Stadia's life since those geniuses had the bright idea of launching a subscription games service with less than 20 games. But know they're sitting at slightly more games, it's kind of a necessity. Of course, anyone with user interface design experience would have highlighted this as the sort of accessibility feature which should have been baked in before launch, but Stadia's an industry trend setter, guys, they can't be troubling themselves with such trivialities like 'basic programming jobs'.

And here comes my favourite part "I'd tell any non-believers-" (oh oh, that's me!) "-to take notice of how we're continuing to put words into action, as we grow the Stadia Makers program and partner with AAA Studios like Capcom, EA, Square Enix, Ubisoft and others." Oh, do you mean how you're getting raked over the coals by those companies as they continue to use you like their own personal piggy banks? 10's of millions have gone to securing Stadia ports of old classic titles, just so that Stadia can turn around and say that they have it, seemingly oblivious to the reality that most people they're aiming for probably already own those games and would probably prefer to play them through the method that doesn't cost them in subscription fees and internet charge bills. Stadia sees itself as a equal to these storied game studios, but those studios just look back at Stadia like rich rubes easily taken for a ride. No one believes Stadia is going to be around long enough for these studios to regret their pointed mistreatment, so they're plundering it's coffers before it's gone and for once I can't blame the greedy rats. I'd do the same in their shoes.

As for the 'Stadia Makers Program', that's an initiative to get smaller creators to make their games to be day-one launches on Stadia, I assume with a leaning towards exclusivity, but from the frontpage they don't appear to say that's a requirement. If this is the program that Stadia is so proud of growing they might want to illustrate that through, I dunno, marketing? Branding? Maybe updating the official webpage because it still mentions Stadia as owning just over 30 games? I just think it's weird that this sort of effort is going towards new developers rather than reaching out to Indie developers that already have Hits out there. It's clear that Stadia want to seek old classic AAA's so why not classic indies? Where's Spelunkey, Binding of Isaac or Stardew Valley on Stadia? Where's Shovel Knight? Dead Cells? Minecra- oh wait, there's no way Microsoft would cut them that deal... (still for a modern platform to not have Minecraft is pretty sinful)

Here's the facts for Stadia's 'grand effort' in putting actions to words; they're failing. They've been failing since before day one. Promises of native 4k support for all games going broken, stable performance can still be illusive to this day without spotless internet and, most disappointingly of all, their first party efforts have been scuppered. What the heck are we supposed to think about the health of your platform when you shut down all your first party studios before they can put out a single game!? It's total madness to think about, but Stadia seem like they're getting ready to put all their stuff in boxes and throw it into the retirement closet whilst hosting their grand celebration tours to let the masses know everything is steaming on ahead. And as I mentioned it mirrors internal policies. Google Stadia game developers had their studio shut down abruptly and with no warning after being told how much of a good job they were doing; no one has a clue what's going on even in an internal level!

So I guess the question I have to pose to you today is thus; when Stadia's head of marketing assures us that Stadia is alive and well with a future in this industry: do we believe him? Regardless of the fact that he's hired to lie, that Stadia has floundered on it's face time after time, that is entirely misunderstands it's target audience, that it requires premium internet to even work right, do you believe this man's words? And of course, you must know that even if you say yes and believe this man would never lie about something so sacred and pure; that doesn't mean he's right. His head could be next on the chopping block and he wouldn't know until the guillotine landed, because Stadia is just a Trireme pushed out in the Aegean sea with a rough sketch of what Troy might look like and without any oars. ("Trust in Poseidon, he'll get us there fine!") If all of that is enough for you than congratulations, you have more faith than me, friend. Just hope that faith has enough electrons to keep servers running after the power company comes and cuts Stadia's lines.

Alex is my spirit animal

 Give this man 'Person of the Year' Time Magazine, you cowards!

I have been freaking out for the last few hours as I write this, and when you read this in a week's time I will still be freaking out. I cannot get over this, I will not get over this. In the year 2020; this is the single most beautiful thing that I've seen in the history of mankind, I simply must share this with someone, anyone! You know those times when everything seems to just be the worst? When everything from the rain practically drowning you one day to timezones messing with a hotly anticipated release on the other, all of which just conspires to truly ruin your good day? And then, like an avenging angel, you see that one thing that just makes you smile despite it all; or giggle uncontrollably like your the victim of Joker's laughing gas, as you try to wrap your head around the absolute pure smooth-brain idiocy you've just read and try to make it work on any remote level? You're there racking your brain, turning over every scenario in your head, and all the while you keep coming back to the same few thoughts. "This can't be real", "This isn't real", "There's no way we live on an world with comedic timing this good!", well I'm here to tell you that it is and you do. May every celestial being have mercy on our pitiful existences.

Ever heard of my new personal lord and saviour, Alex Hutchinson? Me neither, in fact it seems like one of those aggressively generic names that tries just hard enough to seem unique but hasn't quite got there to the point where I feel like I might have heard his name, though in reality I've probably just seen a hundred similar ones. (Either that or this is an elaborate hoax! Oh please, let it be real!) So Alex here just happens to the Creative Director over at Google's struggling attempt to break into the hugely profitable gaming market, Google Stadia. (Oh yeah, you know you're in for an absolute treat whenever we mention their name!) This is the type of of fellow who takes the time out of his way to have in the bio of his Twitter, in all caps, "All opinions are my own!"  (I didn't replicate that here because it's sad and obnoxious) So you know this is the sort of fellow who has his hot takes at 9:00 pm whilst sitting on the toilet. This man, to borrow the parlance of a favoured creator of mine, is the hero of this story.

Now I can't say exactly what it was that set off this godly-fuelled rant into celestial bliss, although given the topic I suspect it was a reaction to the general distress that Twitch users have been expressing over a recent second wave of DMCA claims they've been receiving. Essentially a lot of these streamers use incidental music in the background of their streams, or simply just view content that may have some copyrighted content in it, and then the current copyright laws allow these big companies to aggressively pursue these folk as though hearing a brief snippet of a song in the background of a stream is capable of any remote financial harm to the song itself. Yeah, I'm about to go "Huh, is that The Beatles? Well I heard them in a Stream so I guess that means I never have to buy any of their albums or listen to Spotify ever again." (I could literally write an entire blog about how modern copyright laws are skewered into gross corporate-friendly perversions of what they were meant to protect, but that's beside the point.) So how does Alex fit into all this? Just wait...

Whilst squatting over his porcelain throne, Alex decided to shoot his first hot take right out into the Internet over the marketplace of all the worst discourse in the world, Twitter; and our hero hath proclaimed; "Streamers worried about getting their content pulled because they used music they didn't pay for should be more worried by the fact that they're streaming games they didn't pay for as well. It's all gone as soon as publisher's decide to enforce it." What? My man, what? It was then that I knew we were in for something truly divine. (Oh, and I think he's referring to licencing agreements here, and not trying to imply that every Streamer in the world pirates their games. Although with the level of intelligent discourse displayed by Alex here, maybe he believes that too.) There's literally a mountain of things to get into here, but let me implore that you don't explode with questions just yet as we try to address things one at a time.

Alex isn't trying to be Nostradamus and warm folk about a potential (if dumb) threat to their way of life, like I foolishly gave him the doubt about, he replied to his own Tweet on the matter. "The real truth is the Streamers should be paying developers and publishers of the games they stream. They should be buying a licence like any real business and paying for the content they use." (Gotta love some of that "real truth"; can't stand all that 'fake truth') So the basic thing seems to be this; Alex is somewhat of an old soul who can't reconcile how markets of today differs from markets he thinks he's familiar with. He looks at one thing and notices that it doesn't function like the other thing does, and instead of taking the time to think why that is, he stumbles into a hair-brained solution that everything should function exactly the same because context is stupid and it hurts his brain. (As I live in England, it might help to throw an 'Allegedly' over this entire blog; just to be safe)

So where do we start? Yes, our man is legally right; buying games does not give the purchaser the right to stream said game, only the right to access the software which can be revoked at any time. (Really needs to be an update to that policy but that's a case for another time.) And yet inexplicably games companies most commonly decide not to enforce their rights superiorities over people's streams of their games, (Unless they are some crappy studio who received bad coverage of this terrible game or Nintendo. Although even Nintendo learnt their lesson eventually.) let's explore why that is. Well for one there is this little nagging issue called 'Fair use' which would imply that footage in which streamers react to the content would be transformative and thus protected. In fact, under that provision it would be practically impossible for any online streaming content to break copyright law. However these little tidbits are often overlooked and I'd imagine that if they really wanted to the studios would have the edge in court. So maybe there's something more going on here.

How about, oh I dunno, the fact that going after Streamers for playing your game to an audience of thousands would literally be attacking free marketing? In the modern world where people are inundated and attacked by marketing so much that we're literally taught in school how to ignore it; in such situations it's invaluable to have a source of grass routes marketing where apparent-trusted sources spread the news of your product to those who will listen to them. The popular streamers of Youtube and Twitch perfectly form that sort of ecosystem and thus create an environment wherein game marketing can spread to people who will appreciate it, no matter how niche the game itself. Ever since Pewdiepie this has been the relationship between streamers and publishers, so no-one seeks to make a few bucks out of licences because it's far more profitable not to. Gaming has become the most profitable entertainment medium in the world right now, and their unique stance towards marketing has been a huge contributing factor to that. It's part of the reason why even with all the corrupt and greedy moves that some of these bigger studios pull, they've never gone after streaming; that would literally be shooting oneself in the foot with a freakin' Sawn-off levels of stupid.

And trust me when I say, this a universal rule. Even games which are typically not effected by backlash and dissent would be breaking their own legs to go after their streaming audience. Call of Duty culture was built on the back of  'skillshot compilation' videos back in the day, and the personalities who shared this content would go on to become unofficial, or even official in some cases, spokepeople for these games. Even Football games and the like are supported by fans who love streamers that specialise in that content. And as I mentioned earlier, even Nintendo had to wake up and realise they were being stupid by enforcing their licenses; so Alex is even behind Nintendo mentally. (Think about how much of a relic that makes this poor man.) Whatsmore, Alex seems to think that this move would allow the developers to make more money, (Because any injustice is good as long as it funds artists, right?) when he seems to have completely overlooked the fact that copyright rulings never funnel back to the artists but the studio who owns the licence. Developers wouldn't make bank off of this, Publishers would. (Though not much money, because people would simply just stop covering their games and move onto another game company who isn't run by idiots, same as what they did with Nintendo.)

Now all of this would be embarrassing, but understandable, to have to explain to a nobody who's never played a game before; but Alex boy here is a creative director! And creative director for Stadia, no less! So when you find yourself wondering how it is that everything Stadia does seems stupid and ill conceived, just remember that this is the intellectual calibre of those in charge, then wonder no more. What makes this especially funny, is that Stadia itself touted a feature that would take advantage of game streamers by allowing audience members to watch their content and then launch directly into the game (Something which I believe still hasn't come to the system yet) meaning Mr Creative Director doesn't even understand the creative decisions of the system he's working with! I just- fail to grasp how insane all this is with every layer. How can you work in the game's industry and be this freakin' clueless? My only thought is that this must be a joke, but he seems to have dug his heels in so far that he's become a joke online. I've already seen Streamers mocking him in their titles, so his reputation has been jettisoned in order to make this gaffe, if that's what it is.

As if to put that little perfect cherry on top of the cake, Alex-the-numbskull decided to sign off from the backlash he was receiving with a meme gif (ever the tool of the intellectual) and the message that he was going to play Fall Guys for a while. Oh, 'Fall Guys' is it, Alex? You mean that game that owes it's runaway success due to it's release strategy that took advantage of streamers in order to create demand before the game was out? That's right, 'Fall Guys' was released in a beta format to streamers so that they could play it and create an aura of exclusivity around the game which got people excited for the wider release. This is the game Alex is playing. And he doesn't seem to know it's history. (And don't even get me started on how 'Amnesia' was made popular by Streaming, or 'Doom 2016', or 'Among Us', 'Fortnite', 'Minecraft', 'Mario Maker', the list is unending) It's just too perfect, isn't it? This must be a joke. Never have I seen such a stupid take from someone who really should know better. I could write until my fingers disintegrate into bloody pulps about how wrong every online breath this man took was, but I'll relent. It is his opinion afterall, and some people think that alone makes anything you say right. I guess it just goes to show that Stadia is that platform of mediocrity that keeps on giving; so ride on, you doomed venture, on your inevitable journey to join Quibi in the graveyard of dumb ideas that were destined for damnation. (Congrats on outliving them, though.) 

You may be wondering, given the extraordinary nature of this all, whether or not this story was real. Well in the words of 'Johnathon Frakes' in Beyond Belief: Yes it is. You're right. It's fact. Yes. Yes, a similar event did take place. You're right. You were right. Our research found a published report of a similar story. Yes, it was. A similar story happened to a young man in the pacific northwest about twenty years ago. It happened. A similar event took place. You're right again. You're right. A similar event happened to a teacher in the Florida area. It happened. You were correct, it's fact. It happened. This one took place. A similar event occurred in the state of New Jersey about twenty years ago.

Should we celebrate the death of Stadia, or prepare to mourn it?

Get your free Stadia! Right here.

So Stadia went free the other day. Did you notice? Did anyone? This was just the latest attempt by Google to pimp out their brand new 'solution' to the expensive hardware issue, and to be fair it should have been rather a decent proposition. The ability for rando's to have a go at Stadia and see the systems for themselves is sure to renew some traction in the flagging service's life, and the inclusion of 2 free game (how generous) ensures that people can make use of this quarantine time to keep themselves busy. The only problem comes from the service itself, which is still as temperamental and jittery to play as always. I would have given it a shot myself but my Internet's not even in the ballpark for 'recommended speed' so it probably wouldn't even function. As it is, I haven't seen a great many people rave about this deal and I'm starting to wonder if this will make the splash Google want it to, or just be seen as the frantic failing of a drowning service.

It's a shame because let us be absolutely frank with one another: If this doesn't work to put Stadia on the map than literally nothing will. The service will be even more dead than it already is. Think about it: people have nothing else to do except for sit inside and try to take their mind off of the turmoil outside, Stadia couldn't have prayed for a more ripe opportunity; and yet they seem incapable of capitalising off it; so how could they possible cope in the normal everyday? Heck, for me this lockdown has managed to do the impossible and drag me into the Kingdom Hearts series, (I'm 37 hours in the first game and just beat the Kurt Zisa secret superboss. I think it's safe to say I'm hooked) and yet by simple lack of means I'm incapable of taking advantage of this Stadia offer. How many others are in that exact same conundrum? (Okay, maybe not exact same. Kingdom Hearts is pretty tough.)

At this point I find myself confronted with a peculiar conundrum, as it should be seeing as how I invented it for myself: Should the impending demise of Stadia be applauded or mourned? Now the only reason this struck me was because I recently became aware of how negative I've been towards Stadia ever since it's inception. I've acted like a professional heckler towards this product, laughing when it stumbles and poking it when it's down, but do I actually want to see it go away and die a painful death? (I'm exaggerating, obviously.) I guess what I'm really asking is whether Google Stadia is shaping up to be a failed venture of a promising concept, or a foolhardy proposition that was doomed from day one.

Firstly, of course I never wish for anyone to lose their jobs, and that will most certainly be the case once Stadia goes under. Many big tech companies are looking to get their mitts into gaming now that it's officially been crowned the most profitable entertainment medium in the world, and this serves as a great opportunity for a slew of promising future tech and game developers looking to make their first step into the industry in a big way. These are kinds of people that we need in gaming, and I just hope that this stumble won't end their careers prematurely. (The same goes for Amazon's 'New World', which I just have this really bad feeling about.)

On the otherhand, Stadia was an insanely stupid salespitch from the getgo, and supremely shortsighted for something that it's creators were selling as 'The future of gaming'. I mean sure, if you cast an uniformed preliminary eye over the gaming landscape then it would be easy to deduce that tech restrictions are the biggest issue facing the everyday gamer and if that were eliminated then all 'internal storage' will become redundant, but there's a little bit more to it then that, isn't there? When it comes down to the preservation of older games, modding, playing whilst offline or literally any other of the standard gaming aspects that clashes with Google's vision, the team were silent. Their ads already said it all; ' The big box in your room is ugly, toss it out and get a Stadia subscription so all will be right with the world.'

That isn't to take into account the whole idea of buying every single game you want to play on Stadia exclusively on their malnourished and under developed storefront. (Seriously, these guys make Epic Games look like overachievers) All on top of paying a monthly subscription for the right to use that purchased software. (And then there's the way that they 'magnanimously' gave their premium subscribers free access to Destiny 2, neglecting to mention the fact that Destiny 2 would be going F2P just a month prior.) Honestly, Stadia just seems like a poor financial investment no matter what you look at it, with Google swindling their consumers at ever step under the guise of "This is such a new concept! That means we get to establish the value of everything and the consumer has no say!" To that end there are so many controversies and broken promises from Stadia (Many of which would have been soften if they just admitted this was a 'Beta' service, rather than going around marketing it as a full release) that it's really no surprise why I, and so many others, are actively hostile to this platform.

But with all that said, I still think this concept is a rather cool one that actually has some legs to travel on, at least when handled by folk who aren't trying to supplant all traditional media and establish their own monarchical monopoly. Microsoft and GeForce have active beta projects delving into streaming games directly to people's devices and both of those seem like pretty cool additions to the world of gaming, rather than their new future. It does help bridge the gap between envy and tangibility, and I can imagine the future possibilities of a world perfectly synced to such tech. And some of those ideas and dreams were sparked by Google's own posturing for Stadia, so I cannot discount that they've had some good ideas along the way. (I'm still in love with the idea of streamers literally beaming their game for the audience to try their hand at, talk about interactive!)

So I guess it's time for me to dust off my old 'fence-sitting' crown as I declare that in my opinion: Google Stadia should be both praised and admonished. On one hand it was a naive adventure that you can tell spent more time in the 'creative conception' stage then in the actual tangible development stage; whilst on the otherhand it has been the most high-profile example of game streaming ever hoisted upon the public and has practically singlehandedly catapulted this concept right to the public's attention. So credit where it's due, Stadia's grave may become the bonemeal for a new chapter for gaming technology. (So, thanks Google?)

Stadia Stumbles

And the Crowd roars! (In frustration, mostly.)

You know, I almost feel bad picking on Google's Stadia Project. Maybe it's just because of that reveal event which was hosted by someone I actually respect, but I can't help but think of the human cost at risk if Stadia-  when Stadia goes the way of the dodo. The more dirt that I pull up on this project, the more I find myself thinking 'Am I on the right side of this issue?'. The simple promise of high quality gaming without having to rely on consoles is an ideal worth pursuing, and sometimes I feel like I'm the one fighting windmills when I trash on it. But then I think about my genuine excitement for X-cloud and PlayStation's inevitable cloud gaming system, and I realize that this all stems from my fundamental mistrust of Google.

And why shouldn't I mistrust a company who have proven themselves time and time again to be unwilling to go the distance. I've spoken before about the graveyard of Google projects and services that lie in that company's past, all of which paint a poor picture for what one can expect when it comes to the longevity of Stadia. None of that is to mention the heavy strain this will put on data plans, (Still waiting for those universal price drops that Google promised us would happen.) nor how much that will clog local bandwidth. Then there is the miscommunication regarding the supplication of games, Stadia requires games to be purchased at full price rather than the 'Netflix'-esque deal that people expected from a streaming service. (And what happens to all those games when Stadia inevitably disappears? Without a console or any data client-side, everything vanishes.) I may be a curmudgeon when it comes to Google Stadia, but all the above should convince you that I've built my doubts on solid foundations.

But that is all in the past, as of now, because Stadia is finally out and we can all stop judging the tech on it's presumed merits and get to looking at what the systems(?) actual merits are. Or at least, the merits that they were ready to show at launch. Despite grand promises and impressive demos, it seems that Stadia wasn't quite ready to meet it's launch (shocker) and now there are a decent bevy of exciting features that the founder edition of Stadia has launched without.

Straightaway the PC Chrome will not support 4k, HDR or 5.1 surround sound. (Features which, at this point, aren't even difficult asks.) The 'Stream Connect' feature, in which people can join online streams, will not be available to any and all games (like implied) but a select few, none of which are titles that are launching this year. State Share, which is the big feature that google touted wherein which you could pick up from someone's game on a YouTube video and play that exact instance, is MIA with no clear idea on when it will all be up. Family sharing is a no go, requiring games to be purchased full price several times over. There are no achievements, however the system is keeping track of progress and will award such when achievements launch next year, which makes literally no sense. (What? You guys couldn't be bothered to fit in a UI?) ChromeCast Ultra units that shipped with Stadia are the only ones that can inherently use the service, others will be remotely updated at some point. "Buddy pass", allowing you to refer someone else to the service for a full 3 months, isn't here yet. (Which is the kind of promotion literally designed for the launch period.) The phone is needed to set up the system, buying games through ChromeCast or the web is not supported. (Okay, this is getting embarrassing now.)  Expanding on that, phone support is still online available on those expensive google Pixel phones and ChromeOS tablets. The Controller only works with ChromeCast, which in turn only works if it arrived with the controller, which in turn only works if you have a compatible phone. And yet somehow, it gets worse.

As if all those blaring red flags weren't enough to put you off, Google has another F-you up their sleeve as this service has debuted with only 12 games, and only one of them is new. (An indie title called Gylt.) They offered Assassin's Creed Odyssey, (Which is a year old) Destiny 2, (Which is now free-to-play) Just Dance 2020, (yay) a small title called Kine, (Which is only a month old but launched on literally everything. Take your pick.) Mortal Kombat 11, (Launched at the beginning of this year.) Rise of the Tomb Raider, (Which is 4 years old.) Red Dead Redemption 2, (which just launched on traditional PC. With mods.) Samurai Shodown, (launched in June) Shadow of the Tomb Raider, (1 year old) Thumper (3 Years old) and Tomb Raider. (6 years old.) I hate to harp on about release dates, but the entire original selling point of Stadia was to circumvent the way that modern games forever push past the capabilities of modern public systems requiring for expensive updates. But any gamer who is active today is capable of playing all the games on the list (Except maybe the PC version of RDR2. It is pretty recent.)

This was a product that was clearly pushed to launch early when the team realized that the big gaming giants were ready to debut their own products in direct competition. Even google acknowledged their weak line up as they scrambled together to rush 10 more games onto the service for launch day. (surprise, I guess.) Attack on Titan: Final Battle 2, (Launched in July) Farming Simulator 2019, (1 year old. Also, this game was renowned for being one of the early adopters of Console mods, a system for which we have no idea how it will work over Stadia) Final Fantasy XV (3 years old. My how time flies...) Football Manager 2020, (Talk about a niche audience) Grid 2019, (A month old) Metro Exodus, (Another early year game.) NBA 2K20, (a game that is considered extraordinary for how terrible it is.) Rage 2, (God that was a game that launched this year, wasn't it!) Trials Rising, (A year old and on everything.)  And 'Wolfenstien: Youngblood.' (Which is in the same proverbial camp as NBA 2K20.) None of these titles are promising and/or exclusive enough to demand gamers jump over to them and the fact that all these games are retailing at full price (even the old ones) makes this service prohibitively expensive to the casual gaming audience that Google were aiming at. Oh sure, if you purchase 'Stadia Pro' you get access to 2 of these games for free, Samurai Shodown and Destiny 2, but one of those games is a niche fighter game (Not everyone's cup of tea) and the other just freakin' went free-to-play! WHO IS THIS SERVICE FOR THEN, IDIOTS?

All of these drawbacks, alongside the poor marketing job, has apparently had a blow back on sales numbers if early rumors are to be believed. Kotaku Editor, Jason Schrier, has relayed on Twitter that his sources have seen sales numbers and they look disappointing. Apparently Stadia's preorders were lower than expected and this launch has already been labelled a flop internally. (I wonder why?) Although Jason is adamant that Google won't give up on the system this early. To which I must agree, even Google plus had a few years of fight in it before it withered away into nothingness. At least the service is out there and has some games for people to play, that way people can play with the services available (what little there is) and spread the word of Stadia. They can build up their reputation one good review at a time, grass-routes style, afterall, those are the kinds of communities that tend to last the longest.

Except that's unlikely to pan out for them either considering how early impressions are going. We've seen the tech correspondent from the Washington Post (Stadia dies in Darkness) post footage of second-long input lag in Destiny and even heard circumstantial evidence of European reviewers facing up to 4 seconds of input lag. (Although, amazing, they apparently managed to clear the introductory level of Destiny 2. What absolute troopers!) Forbes called the service a 'technological disaster' reporting periodic stuttering, frame drops and resolution drops, just about all the things that Google promised us would not happen with this new tech. Needless to say, all this pretty much makes Stadia unplayable right now and will undoubtedly forever taint the service in the months to come, even after the team manage to get their act together and fix these issues. (Which they better if they want to make it to Christmas 2020.)

Of course, there are some positives to the system. One being that the game has significantly reduced load times over it's console peers, and the other being the ability to instantly play games without having to download or install them. (Like the good old days.) And that's it. Those are the only positives that anyone has been able to scrounge up for this system. Forbes reviewer even recounted how, even when everything was going well and input was manageable, there was just that slight feeling of off-ness which made Stadia an inferior experience compared to other platforms. He said that it was hardly noticeable on Tomb Raider or Mortal Kombat, but for a game with impeccable tight controls, like Destiny, it really does start to grate. And these are the kind of experiences recounted from people with the internet speeds to really make a service like this work, with 10 times the data speeds that is recommended for the highest tier of play. Just imagine how all this'll work in the hands of the everyday gamer.

Stadia, like many predicted, appears to be dead on arrival. Some outlets are offering favourable coverage with wonder-filled eyes, like IGN, (Because everyone respects the opinions of IGN, right?) but the bad experiences are what is sticking out right now. Everyone is capable of dreaming about what this kind of tech could achieve if properly implemented, but it's the depressing truth that everyone wants to find out about. Right now that truth is that Stadia has been rushed to launch, is too expensive, and has nothing worth drawing the eyes of gamers right now. The only question going forward is whether or not Google have the tenacity to stick through this service, as it burns money for the next year at least, to chisel it into something worthwhile, or will they falter before the launch of Project Scarlett and the PS5 as many, including me, predict. Seems Google might have bit off more than they can chew, this time...

Stadia: The future of gaming?

Up in the cloud.

If you have been keeping up with buzz emanating from gaming studios at any point in the last couple of years, you might have heard how every large publisher wants to move towards streaming in the near future. They want to make sure they are ahead of the trend when it comes to the way people want to experience their interactive entertainment and not get left behind like so many others are. The wake of NETFLIX has resonated with many arbiters of traditional media by lighting a fire under their  collective behinds. All it takes is one upstart to overturn the balance that the entertainment cartel works so hard to keep, therefore it is within their best interest to be ahead of the curve and to lead the next evolution of their industry. But while Xbox and Sony are hard at work establishing their own game streaming infrastructure, a new challenger has entered the ring, and it's Google.

Google is no stranger to beating out the competition, currently owning both the most visited sight on the Internet and the most viewed video sharing platform on the Internet. They like to be the best at the services they offer, even if it means starving potential competition through completely legitimate marketing and business strategy. (No allegations here, Google. Please don't sue me.) However, one market they have never come up against in all their years is the video game industry, oddly. Sort of a missed opportunity considering Reuters reported that, as of May 2018, gaming was the most popular and profitable form of entertainment with a revenue of approximately $116 Billion USD. If Google didn't even attempt to get in on that action then they'd only be shooting themselves in the foot for the future. Lucky for them, they were working on something and in March of this year at GDC, Google announced their foray into the world of Video games with their brand new project: Google Stadia.

Now I may a stubborn curmudgeon who still hasn't taken the time to sit down and watch that GDC reveal for fear of the future, but I am an active watcher of MatPat, (The YouTuber who Google hired to introduce the Stadia.) so I was lucky enough to hear him describe his view on the Stadia and what it has to offer the gaming landscape. Stadia is a service that seeks to revolutionize the availability of high quality gaming by forgoing the expensive barrier-to-entry of purchasing a platform, be it console or a high performance rig. With Stadia, games will be run with Google's processing capabilities and be streamed directly to your compatible devices through the cloud. The actual process is a little more complicated then that but the end result is not requiring a high end console to play a high end video game, opening up the world of gaming to the casual audience, in theory.

During the conference, the Stadia team demonstrated the range of opportunities that this technology opens up for the consumer. First they showed off shared game states; with this feature you could be playing a game on your computer and then instantly switch to your phone and carry on playing from the same spot. Ring any bells? I'd imagine that the success of Nintendo's Switch was a huge encouragement for the team; if people flocked to the console/handheld gimmick for then, who knows how crazy they'll go for the gimmick integrated into Google's cloud. Speaking of integration, another big point that Stadia wanted to drive home was platform integration, namely integrating between gaming services and YouTube. Say that you're watching your favourite YouTuber playing through a brand new release and think 'Oh, that looks cool!', you can scroll down into the description, click on the game and be playing in seconds. No need to get the game, check system requirements, download the game, wait for loading or any of that jazz. Click and play at it's purest form. (At least that's what google would have you believe.)

Clearly Google are attempting to position themselves as the NETFLIX of gaming, shaking up the infrastructure with the convenience of the consumer at the forefront of their mind. No longer would the consumer be having to keep up with these endless console generations to stay on the forefront of gaming and developers would no longer be beholden to limiting system requirements in order to realise their products. Playing a game would be just as easy as sitting down for the night to browse your online streaming service and we'll all live in the castles in the clouds and fart rainbows. Only no, things aren't quiet that black and white when it comes to the trials and tribulations of steaming games on the go.

The reason that NETFLIX has managed to achieve the level of success and proliferation only in recent years, despite being founded in 1997, is not just due to their evolving model but also do to the evolution of infrastructure. Internet infrastructure is such an obvious fundamental that people forget to take it into account when developing their grand visions for the future, ironic as that is the fundamental that most commonly ends up biting projects like these in the bud. Who remembers when the Xbox One was originally marketed as an online only console, requiring constant access to the Internet in order to function. It was an ambitious idea, too ambitious as a matter of fact. Internet coverage was no where near as universal as it is today nor was it reliable enough to maintain a perfect connection indefinitely. Even today the concept of 'always online' is a laughable proposition that screams of a fundamental disconnect between corporate board room speak and the actual issues of everyday people. And yet that is exactly what Google Stadia demands. Constant connection to the Internet in order to stream your games, and we can only assume that a poor connection may also result in input lag. The bane of every gamer. But these issues are nothing compared to the two huge cost based issues that Google have yet to address.

The first issue is the basic cost of Internet. When video streaming was starting to become a possibility, package Internet deals were a big barrier to entry for a lot of people. Since then, packages have become more reasonable to accommodate for the burgeoning new service that Internet providers needed to cater for. However, streaming a video game versus streaming a movie is a whole other can of worms. An average modern AAA video game can take roughly up to 20 hours to complete, assuming it is a traditional single player video game that you only play through once and never again. That is the equivalent of watching roughly 10 movies straight through a streaming service. The brunt of this is felt when it comes to paying for that Internet usage. It's hard to determine specifics, but if you just look at the plan you are using and imagine inflating that with the hours you would be gaming, then you can imagine the bill that you would rack up. On the other hand, most people prefer unlimited plans, or paying for what they actually spend. In that case I point you towards the Final Fantasy 7 remake or Outer Worlds or Cyberpunk 2077 or any of the other upcoming hundred hour RPGs that would decimate your data plan if you were paying for every single second you spent in that world.

Another more direct cost of Google Stadia is for the service itself. It is hard to find any data on this, as though Google itself are embarrassed to share the specifics. What we do know is that 'Stadia Pro' will cost $9.99 a month. Standard fare for a streaming service and not too much to ask for in exchange for access to a huge library of games. Except that isn't what google is offering. Instead you'll have to buy games full price and then have to pay Google for the privilege to play the game you bought off them. Couple that with the strain that you Internet plan will suffer for running the games, and unless you start actively monitoring your playtime and strategically cutting down, you'll find that the funds you saved on buying a console is quickly being swallowed up by simply maintaining your subscription and trying to get the most out of it. Google have tried to downplay the fact that games will cost full price for them, but with the cost of convince being offset by whole other, Internet provider-based, inconveniences; it leaves the average consumer wondering: what is the point of Stadia?

That is ultimately where we find ourselves with Stadia, wondering who this service is for. On terms of brand recognition, Google already have enough proliferation to ensure that Stadia will likely be a success when it launches but in terms of staying power, Google may not have the killer app they think they do. Gamers are some of the most discerning customers that you'll find of any product, it comes from the territory of engaging in a market that is always priced at a premium. When we make a mistake it is a costly one, and so many of us like to look before we jump. Google Stadia looks like a huge gamble that will only work if everyone; consumer, Internet providers and game developers alike, all blindly jump aboard to help keep this boat aloft. If not, Google already has a veritable graveyard full of programs and hardware that they've scuttled the second the going gets tough. Does a similar fate await Stadia? I doubt it. But I also doubt that Stadia will be the game changer it sorely wants to be.

I really do hate to say it, but I think the world isn't yet ready for a gaming streaming service. I mean fundamentally we lack the infrastructure and foundations to support an endeavour like this in any meaningful way. Other gaming companies have understood the restrictions of the current climate and are seeking streaming in a much more sensible way. Xbox are trying to implement streaming from the Xbox one console, Playstation are reportedly working on something similar. Stadia are trying to supplant them first with a service that ostensibly looks the same as NETFLIX but lacks much of the casual convenience that NETFLIX boasts. If Google decide to stick with Stadia then I think it won't be long until they are forced to scale back their promises of 4k streaming and 60 fps gaming for favour of something a lot more reasonable. In the end it is a huge matter of wait-and-see, but I know that I won't be jumping in bed with Stadia until they fix the awful offer they have available, the question is: will you be?