Stadia closing down

[Zevox]

If you're living alone and don't share your console with anyone who might be miffed about having to repeatedly reinstall their games when their turn to play rolls around, sure, storage isn't a big issue. But then, you're probably not running out of space often in such a situation anyway.

I haven't been in a situation of needing to share a console with others since before consoles needed to install games, that's true. At the same time though, given the space they have, I'd expect you to need a decent size family all using one and having several games each they play regularly enough to want always installed before that really became a big issue. Unless you had a several exceptionally large games ala FF7R's ridiculous 81 gigs in that category I suppose, but I can't imagine there's that many of those out there. Plus, aside from such huge games, it's not like installing takes that long either, and modern consoles let you start playing while the game is still installing.

Eh, in any case, not important, just a strange situation where it seems like the proposed solution is likely to be worse than the problem to me.

That's why Game Pass and PS+ are so popular, you get access to a library of games for ~$10 a month, no additional charge.

Bear in mind that PS+ is also required to play anything but free-to-play games online at all. I mean, maybe a huge chunk of the user base flocked to the higher tiers that are all about getting access to the game library when they launched that, I don't know, but unless they've revealed numbers to that effect I'd tend to assume that basic element is what drives much of PS+'s popularity, not the game library.

[Rynjin]

Bear in mind that PS+ is also required to play anything but free-to-play games online at all. I mean, maybe a huge chunk of the user base flocked to the higher tiers that are all about getting access to the game library when they launched that, I don't know, but unless they've revealed numbers to that effect I'd tend to assume that basic element is what drives much of PS+'s popularity, not the game library.

I'm not sure about PS+, but I know Game Pass is something people buy even when they don't have an Xbox. I subscribe to it some months when they have some new game on there I don't wanna pay full price for (like Total War Warhammer 3).

[SerTabris]

TBF this is a problem for all digital storefronts, including Steam. If Valve went under tomorrow you'd lose access to your entire library. Consumers have long since accepted this tradeoff for convenience.

The issue is that Google tried to A.) dance around this fact and B.) made no assurances that they'd keep supporting the product if it struggled for a while.

Combined with the fact that it had a mandatory hardware buy-in, unlike Steam, and it was always doomed to fail.

Including Steam, yes. All digital storefronts, no. This is why I generally prefer getting PC games from GOG and Itch.io; I can download the installers to an external hard drive, and they will then work perfectly fine with no Internet connection at all.

[137beth]

So wait, you had to buy the game AND THEN you could only stream it?

No wonder that's so buried under all the anti-hype, that's legitimately one of the dumbest business models I've ever heard of. You are literally paying them to provide an inferior experience lmao.

You buy the game on one platform and you can only play it on that platform (unless you also buy it on a different platform). Yeah, if you have a computer capable of running games locally then maybe streaming is "inferior," but if you don't, then streaming without requiring a subscription or a hardware purchase is a low barrier to entry.

With Xbox Cloud/Luna, I would constantly worry about whether I was using it enough to justify staying subscribed for another month. That's the same reason I don't subscribe to Netflix, or any other entertainment subscriptions.

[Rynjin]

You buy the game on one platform and you can only play it on that platform (unless you also buy it on a different platform). Yeah, if you have a computer capable of running games locally then maybe streaming is "inferior," but if you don't, then streaming without requiring a subscription or a hardware purchase is a low barrier to entry.

With Xbox Cloud/Luna, I would constantly worry about whether I was using it enough to justify staying subscribed for another month. That's the same reason I don't subscribe to Netflix, or any other entertainment subscriptions.

...But you didn't have the same concerns about Stadia, which has all of those caveats and more?

[Zevox]

I'm not sure about PS+, but I know Game Pass is something people buy even when they don't have an Xbox. I subscribe to it some months when they have some new game on there I don't wanna pay full price for (like Total War Warhammer 3).

I suppose that makes sense for Game Pass, since Microsoft isn't strictly a console maker, but are involved with PCs as well. For PS+ I'd be very surprised if you even can subscribe to it without a Playstation though.

[137beth]

...But you didn't have the same concerns about Stadia, which has all of those caveats and more?

But it didn't have that caveat! Stadia didn't require a subscription or a hardware purchase, whereas the other "streaming" platforms did. That's my entire point and why I preferred Stadia over Xbox Cloud, Luna, Geforce Now, HBO Max, or Netflix.

[Seppl]

But it didn't have that caveat! Stadia didn't require a subscription or a hardware purchase, whereas the other "streaming" platforms did.

It did highly encourage using a Stadia Controller and Chromecast because that was the only way to play on your TV without jumping through hoops. While the Chromecast can still be used for other purposes the controller is now all but useless because the software is incompatible with other consumer hardware (unless Google were to release a patch for their dead product).

[137beth]

It did highly encourage using a Stadia Controller and Chromecast because that was the only way to play on your TV without jumping through hoops. While the Chromecast can still be used for other purposes the controller is now all but useless because the software is incompatible with other consumer hardware (unless Google were to release a patch for their dead product).

Fair points. I don't own a TV though, so I never saw a reason to get a Chromcast or Stadia controller🤷

The bigger issue for me was that there weren't very many games on Stadia I actually wanted, and there were no 1st-party exclusives. And most of the games I did want were indie games that I could also play locally on Steam.

[Psyren]

I suppose that makes sense for Game Pass, since Microsoft isn't strictly a console maker, but are involved with PCs as well. For PS+ I'd be very surprised if you even can subscribe to it without a Playstation though.

You can, though you need the Premium Tier to stream to PC.

But it didn't have that caveat! Stadia didn't require a subscription or a hardware purchase, whereas the other "streaming" platforms did. That's my entire point and why I preferred Stadia over Xbox Cloud, Luna, Geforce Now, HBO Max, or Netflix.

1) You're right, Stadia has a free tier that lets you play the games you purchased. But that's part of their larger marketing problem, because a lot of people didn't realize that and thought that Stadia Pro was the whole service. (The free tier was also 1080p only, but a lot of folks didn't have the bandwidth to stream 4K anyway.)

2) With that said, the bigger problem is that the other services justified their sub fee by including way more AAA games that were accessible subscription-only, and the other services would typically get them first, despite Google sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into the platform to secure licenses. And Google's track record has definitely done them no favors with consumer confidence either.

Including Steam, yes. All digital storefronts, no. This is why I generally prefer getting PC games from GOG and Itch.io; I can download the installers to an external hard drive, and they will then work perfectly fine with no Internet connection at all.

You can offline games on Steam just fine; you just have to do it in advance of when you're going to be off-grid, and re-offline them every so often.

[Bohandas]

Usually I'd feel schadenfreude but I'm too apathetic towards Stadia to even feel that

Including Steam, yes. All digital storefronts, no. This is why I generally prefer getting PC games from GOG and Itch.io; I can download the installers to an external hard drive, and they will then work perfectly fine with no Internet connection at all.

Agreed. If I want a game and it's on both Steam and GOG I'll buy the version on GOG.