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...

Wow, Stadia made it to year 2

 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'.

Stadia and the struggle of establishing value

I'm still worthy!

I try to embrace the future, I really do. Growing up on the edge of the 'interconnected age', on the cusp of the technological boom years, it behooves me to do such. Around me I see countless examples of those who fail to get in line with the future, who are forced watch as it leaves them behind. All those naysayers who preach the doom of society at the hands of tech have started to ring with me less and less as the years go by. Heck, after all of my research into 'transhumanism' I've even stopped buying, the most common of critiques, that 'phone-culture' is stunting human growth. I think that it subverts that growth into something more akin to a symbiotic relationship, put I suppose that falls down to a matter of opinion.

The reason I bring all this up is because my attempts to come in line with the flow of technology has came in conflict with the abject disgust that I've felt towards Google Stadia since it was first announced and I still can't put my finger on why. A sensible person might share my views because they dislike the idea of Google finding another outlet through which to mine personal data, by hosting your favourite hobbies and tracking your time with them. But I've already concluded that Google own my entire soul, therefore Stadia doesn't seriously concern me from that approach. (Even if it should.) Perhaps this is just the beginning of my age starting to show, before long I'll start falling out of the loop of things and griding my teeth whenever I see change. I'll morph into a middle age man pounding on the table shouting. "Why would they change math? Math is math!" Luckily, It seems that I'm not quite there yet as, if Google has their way with their own service, Stadia will not be 'the future' for very long.

Things have been rough for Google's fledgling cloud service system as of late. They received a decent amount of thrashing for the spreadsheet's worth of missing features at launch, several journalists called them out for inconsistent unplayable slowdown issues and recently it has come out that several Stadia titles don't even output at 4k 60fps, (Which is literally the key selling point of streaming your games through Google's hardware) instead they either settle with 1080 or go 1440 and make up the difference through upscaling. (An inherently flawed process for simulating 4K.) These growing pains were seen by a lot more folk then you'd commonly expect from such a niche product as, according to a 'behind the counter' way of viewing sales figures in light of Google's unwillingness to share data, Stadia's founder edition was picked up by over 100,000 individuals. (I'll be honest, that's a lot more than I was expecting.)

Management, it seems, are determined to ensure that this doesn't spoil Stadia's image and therefore are powering ahead with all of their plans for the platform regardless of the setbacks. This is what led them to airing that eye-bleedingly bad advert for the system which highlighted all the systems selling points, most of which are still not functional yet, most hilarious of all being "Stadia has the games your looking for." Which is true providing that you are only looking for 20-odd old games for which your willing to pay full price. Speaking of pricing, that has been a huge point of contention for Stadia over the past few week, (And, honestly, ever since this idea was first announced.) with customers and the the team both harbouring very different and conflicting ideas on how valuable the Stadia infrastructure actually is.

The very concept of cloud gaming, owning no physical media and streaming all of your data from a host, seems to echo the model of Netflix, and so that is what people inherently expect with a service like this. The ability to pay a monthly subscription in order to get access to a selection of video games to play, perhaps on so sort of bi-monthly rotation, with no worries about system requirements, appealed greatly to this 'subcription age' we find ourselves in. Stadia Chief Phil Harrison, however, didn't opt to go that direction and instead had Stadia charge full price for their games. In an interview with the UK games press, Harrison expressed "I don't know why it would be cheaper, The value you get from the game on Stadia means you can play it on any screen in your life - TV, PC, laptop, tablet, phone. In theory, the Stadia version of a game is going to be at the highest-possible quality of innovation and sophistication on the game engine side."

The one thing that Harrison's comments fail to take into account is, well, everything. Stadia games must all be streamed directly from the servers in order to be played, requiring a stable Internet connection in order to remain firm, such actions do strain bandwidth heavily (Internet providers still haven't stepped in to save the day) and, if you're unlucky, the latency could end up making the experience unplayable. At least with home consoles and PCs our games can be played offline if we really need to. Instead Stadia takes the power of ownership, choice and management away from the player and attempts to argue that is it worth just as much to the player.

I understand this approach, I even sympathize with it, but I can't help but see it as ultimately wrong. In their eyes, Stadia is the birth of a whole new medium of gaming and Google know for a fact that every single choice they make in regards to implementation sets the benchmark for how the tech is seen going forward. There are no full blown direct competitors to Stadia currently (Project X-cloud notwithstanding) and so people have no model to compare with and predetermine the concept's worth, so it is in the hands of Google to establish that worth. If Google were to go ahead and start selling games for a fraction of their price on other platforms then the public would instinctively brand Stadia as a budget alternative to consoles, as would publishers, disincentivising those companies from working exclusively with Google in the future. (Which is undoubtedly what the team is angling for.) So Stadia is making a big play by pricing it's content the same as other consoles, essentially announcing themselves as 'standing shoulder-to-shoudler' with consoles, even if that might hurt the initial adoption rate.

There is only one big problem that Google still has overcome in the wake of all this; bringing their core product up to snuff. If the team go ahead and convince the audience that they are buying into a premium service, only for that audience to jump in and realize that it's ramshackle and unpolished, they'll just feel like they're being lied to. (Because essentially they are.) For a good example at this, just look at all this recent controversy surrounding the latest entry to THQ's Darksider's franchise: 'Genesis'.  That is a rare title which managed to launch on Stadia alongside it's physical-world counterparts, but there was one key difference between the Stadia version of the game and all the others, it costs considerably more on Stadia's storefront than on any of their competitors.

When Stadia launched it offered a certain list of helpful discounts on offer exclusively to 'pro' subscribers that ranged all the way up to 50% off for older titles.That policy does not seem to apply for new releases, however, as 'Darksiders: Genesis' is currently retailing for $39.99 on Stadia's storefront whilst on Steam, GOG and Humble you'll find it for $29.99. This means that somehow, in some world, Stadia has fooled themselves into believing that their platform is more valuable than what current consoles have to offer. THQ themselves have refused to comment on this pricing situation, passing the ball directly into Google's court, and people aren't giving those poor guys a break. If this is the sort of precedent that Stadia wants to set then they'll have to start working on conjuring up those missing features sooner rather than later before they're laughed off the marketplace. (Even more than they already are being.)

There was a time when I feared Google Stadia. Feared what it might mean for the world of gaming and digital ownership rules and modding and all those things that Google try to sweep under the rug and hope us gamers forget about. But it seems that my worries were unfounded as Google are content on murdering Stadia themselves before it has any possible chance of taking off in any significant way. Can Stadia potentially turn all this around and become the powerhouse that they always intended to be? Sure. But it would take considerable sacrifice on their part as the company would have to be prepared to operate at an initial loss. (something that I feel a brand a big as Google could easily get away with.) But until the team wake up and start making the changes that need to be made, they'll continue tripping up on their own aspiration and desperate bids to appear 'valubale'. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this Christmas marks the first and last holiday season that Stadia sees.

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?