The game streaming service Google Stadia has a new feature called Crowd Choice, which is being used for the first time in the games Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dead by Daylight. This allows viewers to determine which decisions the streamers make while they are watching. A Google employee has explained how this feature works and what is planned for the future in a direct interview with us.
What is it about? With the two games Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dead by Daylight, the version of the games for Google Stadia has received a highly useful new feature for streamers: Crowd Choice.
This allows you as a streamer to directly involve your community in the stream. Because in certain situations, your viewers can actively decide what happens next. The decision that gets the most votes becomes almost binding for the streamer.
But how exactly does this work in practice? How is it received and what plans does Google have for the future in this area? We reached out to Google with a request for an interview. You can find the questions and answers in the following paragraph.
All about Crowd Choice – Interview with Google
How did you come up with the idea of Crowd Choice? Was it requested by streamers? YouTube creators are always looking for ways to engage with their viewers, as engagement helps them build and maintain their community. One of the most important methods creators use to do this today is the chat on YouTube.
The Crowd Choice feature of Stadia utilizes the chat function of YouTube during live streams to build on this relationship and conduct polls with the viewers. The results of these polls influence the game play. With Crowd Choice, the audience goes from being viewers to active participants in the game they are currently watching.
How does it work? Is it an integrated feature of the game itself or just a kind of YouTube/Twitch overlay? Crowd Choice polls are triggered when the developer integrates the Crowd Choice API into their code. Polls created by the developer can be linked to any action in the game. When a YouTube creator then streams their Stadia game and activates the Crowd Choice mode, viewers are presented with the polls designed by the game developer.
What is the initial feedback and the reaction of streamers to Crowd Choice? Is it used by many? The initial reaction from the creator community was very positive! In particular, one creator had trouble downloading Baldur’s Gate 3 on Steam when it launched during their stream. Within minutes, they purchased the game on Stadia and played it for the viewers, complete with Crowd Choice. It was a great moment that showcased Stadia’s immediate accessibility for developers, especially when you want to play a game right after it launches.
Why were Dead by Daylight and Baldur’s Gate 3 chosen as the first games to use Crowd Choice? Dead By Daylight and Baldur’s Gate 3 present important choices for players that they can share with their viewers, and we are very pleased that both Behaviour Interactive and Larian Studios were as interested as we were in integrating Crowd Choice into these games. These games are just the beginning for supporting Crowd Choice – we look forward to expanding the feature to more titles soon.
What are typical Crowd Choice situations in Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dead By Daylight? DbD is based on quick actions. How does Crowd Choice contribute? In Dead By Daylight, viewers can take control of the live stream by teaming up with other viewers to decide how things will progress. For example, they can help choose whether their preferred YouTube creator is a “Killer” or a “Survivor,” followed by which character.
In Baldur’s Gate 3, all narrative decisions can be used by creators as an opportunity to ask their viewers to determine what happens next in their adventure. Everything from the question of who your character falls in love with to who becomes friend or foe can be decided by the viewers.
Why can’t streamers edit their own Crowd Choice polls? Why must they use predefined options? Are decisions made by themselves planned for the future? The developers of games that support Crowd Choice determine both the instances in which the feature is triggered and the options that can be voted on. This is a feature we have implemented in collaboration with our development partners, and at this time, the choices in each game are predefined.
Do you plan to add Crowd Choice to more games that are already on Stadia? And how many games do you plan to release with this feature in the future? Crowd Choice will soon be added to more games on Stadia. In addition to Dead By Daylight and Baldur’s Gate 3, we are also planning more new ways for you to use Crowd Choice in other games.
Crowd Choice sounds great, but I fear it could also be used for trolling. What can a streamer do about it? How can a streamer counter Crowd Choice? The creator is shown the voting results from the viewers in percentages, and in the current Crowd Choice games (Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dead By Daylight), the creator can then choose to follow the players’ decision or make their own choice. This not only protects against troll behavior but also opens up new possibilities for creators to utilize the feature.
In what way do you think Crowd Choice will change the streaming landscape? Is this a direction we can expect more of in the future? Crowd Choice is an important step for Stadia, as it increases the visibility of Stadia Enhanced Features that fundamentally change how creators can interact with their viewers. Crowd Play, another feature developed for YouTube, will soon be available and allow players to jump directly into the game to play alongside a creator they are currently watching as a live stream on YouTube. Stream Connect and State Share Beta, other Stadia features already introduced for games in the Stadia store, represent the unique and positive changes that cloud platforms like Stadia bring to creators and their viewers.
This is the current status of Stadia Crowd Choice. It is to be hoped that more games will soon receive this feature, thus providing more benefits for streamers and content creators on Stadia. The MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online on Stadia would be a game that would surely benefit from such a feature.
