With today's announcement is this the start of a slow death?
https://blog.google/products/stadia/focusing-on-stadias-future-as-a-platform-and-winding-down-sge/
Hey there everyone, I wanted to chime in with the response I posted to my post on Stadia's subreddit:
"Hi everyone, I completely understand your emotions surrounding the news, so I wanted to chime in with a couple more thoughts. Please note that Stadia.com, Stadia Pro, and your games aren’t going anywhere. In fact, we’ll keep bringing more games to the platform and Stadia Pro. We had an exciting launch with Cyberpunk 2077 back in December, and the Stadia team is dedicated to bringing even more titles to the platform this year."
...Google, I know you all knew this was going to be poorly received, but I don't know if you knew how poorly. To have this news hit after a couple months of the only good press Stadia ever got is really, really not great. The promise of Stadia was games that could only happen in the cloud, not just everybody else's games running (at best) as good as or slightly worse than on the competition. And a year in, you're shutting down the only source those magic experiences were going to come from. No 3rd party is going to make a Stadia exclusive game that needs their distributed computing to function when Google themselves won't do it even after building two studios with that purpose. We might get more neat side features like the picture-in-picture stuff, but I expect that's gonna be it.
This is a reasonable thing to be disappointed about. It's a huge (speculative, but the speculation came from Google) promised upside to the platform that is no longer going to happen. As a founder I have plenty of stuff I'm still actively playing and enjoying on the platform, I'm not goin' anywhere, but it's hard to see how this doesn't trigger a massive wave of "told you so" negative press and make user retention a nightmare.
Everything Google has said publicly for the last year, in the very rare instances they've chosen to say anything outside a blog post at all, has been 100% committed to the message of long term, confident investment in this platform. And a lot of us bought that, because, you know, you're Google. You have the money. You did the R&D. You hired Jade Raymond.
I think you just shot a lot of that credibility right in the knees, folks. ![]()
All that said, Grace, thank you for your tireless commitment to this community. I'm sure it absolutely sucks having to handle this news.
I believe that, despite everything that can be said about this whole announcement, yes, this is the beginning of the end.
I am saying this as a Founder that has invested 500€ for hardware and software in this project (because, c'mon, for how this has been managed it was clear that it has been a project all along).
I have loved so many things about Stadia, too bad it is now clear that I was most likely one of the very few ones.
Yes, this is the beginning of the end, because this is how Google has always treated dying products: they progressively shut down services to postpone the inevitable.
Look at Google Latitude and how they incorporated it in Google Plus before closing it.
Look at Google Plus and how they separated it from Google Photos before closing it.
Look at how they implemented VR in Google ARCore before destroying Google Cardboard.
I have already seen this film. Yes, I will stay with Google. Yes, I'll stay subscribed to Stadia Pro (never skipped a month, actually), because I still enjoy the service. But now we can finally talk about WHEN Stadia will shut down. The "IF" question has been answered today.
I surely hope not. I truly love the Stadia service. But if it comes to that, then there is nothing we can do. I have been supportive since day one, and will continue to support it. My question is what happens to all of my purchases if Google Stadia does end up shutting down.
I guess you lose out my friend
Hopefully not. Maybe a credit or transfer of the games to another platform (Steam, Xbox, etc.). I know when Xbox shut down Xbox Fitness I got a credit for purchased items. Is what it is at this point. I love Stadia, and like I said I will continue to support the platform. Been here since day one, and will continue to be. ![]()
hi
hopefully as I brought few games also
hopefully they credit everyone even with a google play voucher won’t be ok
Don’t get me wrong I like tech and stadia works that’s fact
The argument everyone is saying I gathered is there business model is dodgy
now if they say went the Netflix route and said here play all these games for a amount per month
google confuse the business model let’s be frank here who buys an out of date game for nearly full price
plus the fact other platforms are giving away destiny doom and others for free it don’t make sense for google
Amazon decided this route for a reason
It certainly is not good news.
The way I interpret it, Google have realised that it will take a huge amount of time and investment to deliver high quality exclusive games....so are focussing on the hardware aspect they already have a huge head start on. I think overall it’ll be positive for us.
I guess the real proof will be whether big name games still come to the platform and whether the player base continues to grow...
It doesn;t surprise me they're shutting down the games division, must be difficult to see return of investment in games that are mostly not sold, and the appeal to the general public is almost non existant, despite them being nice games. Reputation takes long to build and the gaming industry is saturated. That being said, I think Stadia as a platform has a brilliant future and Google is just ahead in the game, although the catalog needs to grow. Only time will tell but I think Stadia business model is an all-win for Google, you buy game after game, but you only use their infrastructure with the game you're playing. I don't see how they're not making money, plus more to come as they grow and people get a taste.
however, they should be more open to users. I started my experience with Cyberpunk, now i have bought some games and i really enjoy it.
But, i think Stadia has many flaws which can be easily solved. And the biggest one is the lack of transparency and uncertainty.
I definately don't think this is the end. Making your own games is costly and the money saved can be put to use on bringing more titles to the platform and maybe a AAA exclusive here and there.
Overall this will make the platform stronger.
Hey there everyone, I wanted to chime in with the response I posted to my post on Stadia's subreddit:
"Hi everyone, I completely understand your emotions surrounding the news, so I wanted to chime in with a couple more thoughts. Please note that Stadia.com, Stadia Pro, and your games aren’t going anywhere. In fact, we’ll keep bringing more games to the platform and Stadia Pro. We had an exciting launch with Cyberpunk 2077 back in December, and the Stadia team is dedicated to bringing even more titles to the platform this year."
Hi Grace, I never placed your comment as best response. How did it become best response?
@GraceFromGoogle
This is still immensely disappointing.
The cloud native games and unique features were the biggest selling point of the service. Like others have stated, this was a clear and obvious statement that Google is no longer committed to making Stadia a success.
We as users didn't want exclusives for the sake of exclusives, we wanted exclusive games because the experiences weren't technically possible on other platforms, or at least were harder on other platforms.
There needs to be a LOT more transparency here because you just told all of the publishers and game developers - you don't think you can make a profit on your own platform. How can you keep bringing games in a profitable manner if it seems like the service is going down the tubes.
If you can't make a profit on your platform, why would a publisher want to partner to say run a white-labeled version of Stadia?
This is what we want to hear to honestly salvage this I realize you may not be able to answer everything or even everything all at once, but it would be really really valuable to get even piecemeal information on this.
Will you be investing in cloud native games still - but through third parties?
Will you continue to focus on making Stadia as a platform - it's web app, it's mobile app, it's chromecast experience better and unique?
Will you continue to be investing in creating unique integrations and features like crowd choice, crowd play, state share, stream connect etc?
The game designers and developers that were at Stadia Games and Entertainment, can you offer clarity, are they moving into a role where they are going to be helping onboard games from other publishers?
(obviously meaning in a general majority sense. Obviously individual folks may be moving to different types of roles)
Was there pressure from other publishers that they didn't want to be on the platform if you had your own publisher was that part of the reason?
Is this first party publishing thing possibly only a short term strategy change, and may get revisited later?
if stadia shut down permanently what happens to our games?
They've promised that in the event that ever happens, users won't lose their paid for games, but they haven't been specific about how they'd cover that promise.
That said, I don't think that's a realistic short-term concern. This news doesn't make me think the stuff about their content roadmap for the next couple of years with third parties hasn't been true. It just means that's gonna have to be enough, and <shrug> I mean, we'll see.
Original games were all that everyone wanted. Honestly would prefer if there were ZERO third party games and ONLY first party games in a few years. I'm not that into playing all the games that I could already play and with more stability, I wanted something cutting edge which was what stadia was supposed to be. "Huge 1000 person battle royales.." *welp* not anymore! I guess Amazon won again. So disappointing
Thank you Grace. After the news I lost all steam for Stadia. It felt good having stadia in 4k on my tv and knowing that there would be a special stadia only stadia team built in house game built that would kick butt gave it a special feeling. That is gone now and just feels like a multi platform streaming base. My guess is you guys will convert everything over to PC base like Luna where we can adjust all settings. Sadly after this news I'll be picking up a xbox series s here soon.
Google, you guys need to get serious in this business, if not, just shut it down already, stop dragging poor customers along in this nightmare.
Hi Grace,
I really hope you are right, but looking at the forums, Facebook Groups, Reddits and Tweets: you people really need to step it up. We want way more transparancy in how the future is looking. What is coming when? How many games in which month? Is there at least one company working on one AAA exclusive game? Where are the final two promised EA games? Where are the Mafia games? It's almost like every month there is some negativity out there, being created by Google itself. How is that remotely possible?
I don't understand why it's so hard for you guys to create something like a roadmap. I have seen interns that never photoshopped in their entire life do it in 4 hours.
And one tip and please for the love of all things saint: Gamers are passionate about their games. We invest in a platform, we try to persuade other in buying in on the platform. We trust you, don't abuse it.
When "you" got something to tell like that article everyone is scared about: please, don't say "we keep on supporting and games are coming". That's way to generic. Have you guys never heard of the "give something good when you wanna tell something bad"?
How easy would it have been to say someting like "Hey, SG&E is closing down, but we are gonna focus on bringing over games from others. Yea, the closing of the SG&E is a bummer, BUT to show you we mean it: The other two EA games are ... and ... AND to top it off: Our goal is to launch 30 new titles in Q1. Oh and btw: login today and see GAME X just arrived! (Game x being a super AAA game ofc)
Then we had something to look for and we would feel like "ok, bummer, but there was also fantastic news". The best news we had was the free weekend for farming simulator in the TWoS the FOLLOWING DAY. You serious? All news outlets had already written Stadia was dead.
Really loving the platform, really, having a blast on it. Don't regret any purchase at all. It's just irritating to see you guys struggle so hard and you guys never really respond and never seem to really wanna connect with us for feedback.
I just signed up for a monthly subscription, but I want to purchase cyberpunk 2077. what will happen if stadia shuts down? will I lose the purchased game and money?
...Google, I know you all knew this was going to be poorly received, but I don't know if you knew how poorly. To have this news hit after a couple months of the only good press Stadia ever got is really, really not great. The promise of Stadia was games that could only happen in the cloud, not just everybody else's games running (at best) as good as or slightly worse than on the competition. And a year in, you're shutting down the only source those magic experiences were going to come from. No 3rd party is going to make a Stadia exclusive game that needs their distributed computing to function when Google themselves won't do it even after building two studios with that purpose. We might get more neat side features like the picture-in-picture stuff, but I expect that's gonna be it.
This is a reasonable thing to be disappointed about. It's a huge (speculative, but the speculation came from Google) promised upside to the platform that is no longer going to happen. As a founder I have plenty of stuff I'm still actively playing and enjoying on the platform, I'm not goin' anywhere, but it's hard to see how this doesn't trigger a massive wave of "told you so" negative press and make user retention a nightmare.
Everything Google has said publicly for the last year, in the very rare instances they've chosen to say anything outside a blog post at all, has been 100% committed to the message of long term, confident investment in this platform. And a lot of us bought that, because, you know, you're Google. You have the money. You did the R&D. You hired Jade Raymond.
I think you just shot a lot of that credibility right in the knees, folks. ![]()
All that said, Grace, thank you for your tireless commitment to this community. I'm sure it absolutely sucks having to handle this news.
Told them so lol
no you right tho you just Carnt trust google these days
I won’t be ploughing money into this subscription or buying games
To be fair and honest Amazon have never ever let me down as a brand ok sometimes we have problems with delivery etc but they always put it right etc
I’m not buying games for them to pull the plug
If they want this to suceed they should treat it more like steam and stop forcing stadia specific sports, must kill any enthusiam for devs knowing they need to make a stadia version too unless google are paying vast amounts since actual sales will be very low.
Be a platform google, not a console thats how this will work
It's more than disappointing, it's the death of Stadia unless they release gen 2 NOW so we can play the games in way superior version than the competition.
It's pointless to play here with no exclusives and not the best version of games.
This is definitely not a good look for stadia. Everyone is expecting Stadia to be cut which is dissuading gamers from investing time in it for fear Google isn't fully invested in it itself. This is a VERY strong signal Google doesn't believe in it as a platform itself. How can it expect other studios to if it isn't willing to invest itself. Right now all my friends and people across the internet are saying "I told you so". Even worse the language is no different than the language used before Google cut other products and services. I still have an email where Google support stated they had no intention of shuttering Google Play Music with the launch of YouTube music and they were committed to its service. This is not good PR
I blame the CFO the mandate that all alphabet subsidiaries most show profitability has turned Google's longer-term thinking and engineering to short term thinking. You're seeing this across the board since ~2015 when the new CFO took the helm. You're seeing a lot of braindrain too from innovators that found a home at Google now leaving.
It's hard not to believe this is the beginning of the end....if today's announcement would have been followed up with positivity....like "....and to prove were committed to partnerships, Capcom will be bringing Resident Evil 8 this May to Stadia...." This would have softened the terrible news and given us a glimmer of hope. Hard to not be 100% doom and gloom on this.
<shrug> Deals are ready to announce when they're ready to announce. I don't think this means more than what it means, but I do think what it means is a pretty big blow to the unique potential of the platform as Google pitched it.
I think they may have intentionally separated this announcement from a positive announcement. Even if they announced " hey Stadia Now has the latest Nintendo games" it would have soured the message and Nintendo would have gotten flack.
I think they're just trying to control the narrative a little. I would hope there's another announcement coming. We still don't know what hailstorm is.
Speaking from some other perspectives I have seen.... the assumption seems to be "If Google is not willing to invest money, why should anyone else?", which on the surface feels true, but it's all a matter of where they go from here.
Time will tell, and as I said on another board, it's hard to want to spend money on this service when the future is so uncertain. That hesitation to spend will just lead to a self fulfilling prophecy in the end ![]()