bulletin witch

King of Posters
#1049

Stadia launches with traditional purchasing, no universal client access for several months (must purchase a ‘Stadia’ box which uses a Chromecast as the client, presumably as a larger-scale stress test). Has a monthly fee but it’s pitched not as a subscription model but something closer to the value of Xbox Live or PS+; higher-quality streaming and ‘some’ free games.

Their value is in radically reducing friction between viewing a game and playing, and so Netflix-like buffet-style-content, but it looks like they don’t have the leverage or funding support to move anything outside of traditional purchases. If their internal studios ever produce must-haves that would help but that looks at least years out.

I don’t think this is a strong play if they don’t have the subscription model in place. And dedicating their launch to ‘must have unique hardware at comparable to console prices’ really undercuts their selling point, ‘any computer or phone and any controller can run this already’.

#1050

Did they say unique hardware? What I read at Kotaku said it ran through Chromecast, with the “founders bundle” including the controller and a Chromecast Ultra.

If “the box” is just a Chromecast, that’s a fairly common device.

#1051

My understanding is that you have to purchase the ‘Founder’s Edition’ to use the service, at least until ??. (Or have a Pixel 3 for mobile play(!)). Eventually they open it to normal web clients, you know, the entire point of the service.

#1052

This article tracks well with what I’ve been thinking and goes into more detail:

#1053

Update: Kevin VanOrd IS working on Baldur’s Gate 3!

#1054

it honestly kind of seems like the exact thing that happened when steam came out

like, it seemed like a way to totally upend the traditional game purchasing model and stuff

instead you just buy games at full price but digitally until they lower it by 75% every 6 months

early access was big tho

#1055

From Kotaku:

This November, you’ll only be able to play with a Stadia controller and a Chromecast hooked up to your television.

Seems to imply that even if you already have the Chromecast, you will need their controller too.

#1056

stadia is like steam for linux without even the enthusiasm of linux users

8 Likes
#1057

Ew, yeah, the no subscription service is a huge negative. Streaming, with current technology, is mostly inferior to running the game locally. If they don’t reduce friction, then any other “advantages” Stadia has (cloud computing, “unlimited” resources, no more patching, etc) are overshadowed by the downsides of streaming.

1 Like
#1058

Yeah, Steam had huge impacts on game sales – it is directly responsible for saving PC games from retail death, it was a major contributor to an indie ‘market’, it has drastically changed the value of legacy and catalog releases, led publishers to experiment with different price points for different audiences, and, like you said, there’s the whole early access thing.

I think it was as foundational a change as the mobile games market, or the influx of free-to-play business models from Nexon and the like.

2 Likes
#1059

Subscription model + paying full price for games is pretty hilarious. DOA imo

4 Likes
#1060

My take on this is: since I couldn’t read this post without my eyes rolling back into my head, and actually I still don’t understand what I would need to physically do in order to use this Stadia service, not because I am unintelligent but because I refuse to do the mental legwork to understand this labyrinth of metaphysical terms, it’s not going to do well.

6 Likes
#1061

at some point you’re going to have to stop considering yourself representative of the average consumer but I don’t think this is it no

1 Like
#1062

this is absolutely the average consumer. doing tech support for-fucken-ever has taught me that people don’t want a good solution to something if it has more than 4 different steps. They would rather spend 4 hours doing something they know how to do repeatedly than 1 hour critically thinking about technology and

I don’t blame them

Technology sucks

8 Likes
#1063

“Stadia has the benefits of alienating people who play action games and care about latency, along with the total confusion of a messy launch and interconnected technology that will also put off the average consumer! Buy our founder’s kit so we can beta test a product that we’ll quickly abandon after we test out whatever technology we really care about and integrate it into Youtube!”

10 Likes
#1064

You’re right but I wrote that in the voice of game and business jargon so that’s half my fault

#1065

baldur’s gate but your playthrough ends when the game hard locks and you check twitter to find out that stadia has been dismantled and everyone involved has been reassigned to work on a whatsapp clone

8 Likes
#1066

Actually now I’m surprised they didn’t YouTube brand this system somehow

1 Like
#1067
1 Like
#1068

I played this two days ago and will recommend it to anyone interested. It’s a very short experience, but the price point of 3€ is perfect.

1 Like