Currently, there are rumors that significant changes are coming to Google’s service Stadia. The community around Stadia fears that in the end, they may be left behind. MeinMMO explains what it’s about.
What is Stadia? Stadia is a cloud service from Google where you can play your games in the cloud. You don’t install anything on your hard drive anymore, but play the games via the Stadia servers. Unlike GeForce Now, however, you cannot stream Steam games, but must purchase the games at Stadia.
However, there are now rumors that Google wants to completely revamp its cloud service. For a long time, there have been discussions that Google Stadia is developed little or not at all. But the latest rumors are unsettling even for the players who remain loyal to the service.
The shift from gaming to technology at Stadia is not surprising
Exactly one year ago, on February 1, 2022, Phil Harrison, Vice President and General Manager at Google, announced that the “Stadia Games and Entertainment” division would be shut down. Instead, they want to further develop Stadia as a technology platform.
At this point, many gamers should have realized that gaming has long since ceased to be the focus at Stadia. The fact that Google wants to rebuild its cloud service is overall not very surprising. According to an insider, Google is said to have invested several million euros in Stadia.
What exactly is supposed to happen now? The current rumors tell that Google wants to use its technology behind cloud gaming to support developers. These developers can then test games or demos in the cloud.
The online magazine Business Insider reports that there has long been internal discussion about a shift. Gaming is now only a very small part:
Current and former employees said that the priority is now on the proof-of-concept for Google Stream and securing white-label deals. One employee estimates that about 20% of the focus is directed at the consumer platform.
“There are many people internally who would like to keep the platform running, so they really work hard to ensure it doesn’t die,” they said. “But they are not the ones writing the checks.”
(via business-insider.com, paywalled article)
What do the gamers say? Opinions in the community are strongly divided. Many are disappointed with Google’s stance and state that they are not willing to invest in a product that only receives 20% attention (via reddit.com).
Many users are particularly outraged about the statement regarding the 20%. Many feel that they are not appreciated enough as paying gamers and are demeaned by the statement simply because they do not pay enough.
Others state that they will not buy games or pay for the subscription, “because they are afraid of continuing to invest time and money in something that they know could end at any time.” (via reddit.com)
Some even fear that the time of Stadia for gamers is coming to an end soon. But they still hope that Google has some positive news for the ailing cloud service in the future.
Stadia launched with several issues that persist to this day
At launch, Stadia already faced several problems. These included a severely limited selection of games. Because at launch, Stadia offered barely any games, and anyone who wanted to play on Stadia had to buy many full-price titles all over again.
Google not only offered software around the “Stadia” ecosystem but also hardware like controllers. However, overall, the success remained very limited. Already at launch, opinions about the new cloud service were strongly divided. This was likely also because many hoped for a “Netflix for Gamers,” which it ultimately was not:
Success or Fail? These are the critiques and hopes regarding Google Stadia
