Google Calls it Quits on Game Streaming, Shutting Down Stadia

[Hofnaerrchen]

Almost everyone in the gaming industry is talking about reducing latency. So why should a service that - by the nature of physics - adds latency work? It's only surprising it took that long to be quit. Maybe google's decision to take that step was also done on a streaming service, just with even higher latency added.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Almost everyone in the gaming industry is talking about reducing latency. So why should a service that - by the nature of physics - adds latency work? It's only surprising it took that long to be quit. Maybe google's decision to take that step was also done on a streaming service, just with even higher latency added.

Gaming needed a word to, in essence, combat these gaming as a service models and the one logical word that mattered most with gamers, especially competitive gaming, was Latency.

/phdnbs

 

[cvaldes]

There are a lot of titles that don't require superfast input latency.

Apex Legends? Sure, input latency is a concern.

Minecraft? I dunno. Even some single-player open world games might not need it. Could Red Dead Redemption 2 be a cloud streaming title? I don't see why not.

I think a lot of this will be how thoughtful these cloud streaming services pick titles for their portfolio.

Ultimately I think some of the implementation concepts that Google Stadia used will be adopted in the future by other cloud streaming service operators.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Minecraft? I dunno.

It's still a problem, especially when you're in a battle with whatever attacks you.

 

[cvaldes]

Again, I'm not convinced.

Most people fall into the "casual gaming" category, not the diehard 360Hz 1080p competitive types.

I don't think these cloud streaming gaming services are meant to cater to EVERYONE. No one can please everyone all the time.

Can a cloud streaming service please casual gamers for the 45-90 minutes they play some title? Not everyone is shackled to their gaming chair for 8 hours.

Even Microsoft admitted that it was looking into cloud streaming as a console replacement. There will always be a niche market for PC gaming as long as the content is built on PC.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Again, I'm not convinced.

Have you tried it?

 

[cvaldes]

Have you tried it?

Yes, indeed.

Google Stadia? On my Mac, iPhone, iPad, and with the Stadia bundle (controller + Chromecast). I even played this on my iPhone because official support was released by using the discontinued Stadium iOS browser app.

Allegedly I'm supposed to get a refund for the Stadia gear but I won't have to return the hardware. That's great, I really bought it at a deep discount for the controller as a backup gamepad. The Stadia controller is well designed and works fine as a wired device.

GeForce NOW (free tier): on my iPhone, iPad, Windows PC, Mac, and LG OLED TV (the latter has the app).

I've also played Control on my Switch for a few minutes on Nintendo's fledgling cloud streaming service. I did not get far enough for any gun battles against the Hiss though.

I don't have Amazon Prime so I haven't yet tried Luna.

For sure, some titles work better with today's streaming technology. I expect the experience to get better over time. Not something I personally would pay for today. Someday? I won't rule that out. Sure beats downloading some 80 GB game over my ghetto DSL connection.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Yes, indeed.

Google Stadia? On my iPhone, iPad, and with the Stadia bundle (controller + Chromecast).

Allegedly I'm supposed to get a refund for the Stadia gear but I won't have to return the hardware. That's great, I really bought it at a deep discount for the controller as a backup gamepad. The Stadia controller is well designed and works fine as a wired device.

GeForce NOW (free tier): on my iPhone, iPad, Windows PC, Mac, and LG OLED TV (the latter has the app).

I've also played Control on my Switch for a few minutes on Nintendo's fledgling cloud streaming service. I did not get far enough for any gun battles against the Hiss though.

I don't have Amazon Prime so I haven't yet tried Luna.

For sure, some titles work better with today's streaming technology. I expect the experience to get better over time. Not something I personally would pay for today. Someday? I won't rule that out. Sure beats downloading some 80 GB game over my ghetto DSL connection.

I'm sure it doesnt matter as much on non-PC gaming, but on PC is a complete different story. It will show its ugly head more so when you play multi-player type games, any kind. Single player games are not affected as much (that has been hashed time and again). Combat is the telltale sign of latency, if you notice slideshow symptoms, your latency is to blame. The difference between 10ms and 200ms is like night and day, one minute you can be at full health and the next you could be dead because you were too late using that health potion.

When overall connection latency drops below 5ms, game streaming services will be more viable. The latency between SE Michigan and Syndey, Australia is over 200ms in some games I've played, depend who is hosting, its not fun falling behind.

Another thing is server jumps, do a trace and see how many jumps between your game and your device, I'll bet its 6 or more, there is the beginning of latency problem

 

[cvaldes]

It will show its ugly head more so when you play multi-player type games, any kind. Single player games are not affected as much (that has been hashed time and again).

However a lot of people here continue to say "it'll never work" across the board for all game types. This simply isn't true, they just stubbornly have their heads buried in the sand.

When overall connection latency drops below 5ms, game streaming services will be more viable. The latency between SE Michigan and Syndey, Australia is over 200ms in some games I've played, depend who is hosting, its not fun falling behind.

Yah, a lot of the latency challenges are a function of the current breadth of service deployment, not the actual concept itself. Someday they'll put a server in Chicago (or wherever) and you and your neighbors will see less latency.

For sure, despite my pokey DSL connection I likely have pretty low latency to some of these servers simply because I live in Silicon Valley where many of them are hosted.

Most likely these cloud streaming services will succeed first in large metropolitan areas with really good cellular connectivity and broadband access, places like Seoul, Tokyo, and Singapore.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Yes, indeed.

Google Stadia? On my Mac, iPhone, iPad, and with the Stadia bundle (controller + Chromecast). I even played this on my iPhone because official support was released by using the discontinued Stadium iOS browser app.

Allegedly I'm supposed to get a refund for the Stadia gear but I won't have to return the hardware. That's great, I really bought it at a deep discount for the controller as a backup gamepad. The Stadia controller is well designed and works fine as a wired device.

GeForce NOW (free tier): on my iPhone, iPad, Windows PC, Mac, and LG OLED TV (the latter has the app).

I've also played Control on my Switch for a few minutes on Nintendo's fledgling cloud streaming service. I did not get far enough for any gun battles against the Hiss though.

I don't have Amazon Prime so I haven't yet tried Luna.

For sure, some titles work better with today's streaming technology. I expect the experience to get better over time. Not something I personally would pay for today. Someday? I won't rule that out. Sure beats downloading some 80 GB game over my ghetto DSL connection.

Ok, that's fair. You tried it and enjoyed it. Not everyone has though. I don't see the point of Streaming games when I can play them directly on the source system. I've tried them and not one of them resulted in an experience I would consider acceptable...

However a lot of people here continue to say "it'll never work" across the board for all game types. This simply isn't true, they just stubbornly have their heads buried in the sand.


Yah, a lot of the latency challenges are a function of the current breadth of service deployment, not the actual concept itself. Someday they'll put a server in Chicago (or wherever) and you and your neighbors will see less latency.

...for any game I tried. Latency is too big of a problem to overcome. There are exceptions, for example, board-game types like Chess, Checkers, Monopoly, etc where latency simply has little effect. But for anything that requires even semi-precise reaction times, it's dubious.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

However a lot of people here continue to say "it'll never work" across the board for all game types. This simply isn't true, they just stubbornly have their heads buried in the sand.

I cant completely disagree since all game types is pretty broad coverage, but latency will still affect all games in varying degrees ( I touched on that part already ).

to get an idea just ping your connection. Netstat is for experts.

 

[cvaldes]

Ok, that's fair. You tried it and enjoyed it. Not has though. I don't see the point of Streaming games when I can play them directly on the source system. I've tried them and not one of them resulted in an experience I would consider acceptable...

...for any game I tried. Latency is to big of a problem to overcome.

I didn't say that I enjoyed it. I said I tried it multiple times and that some people might find some of the content and gaming experience to be "good enough."

I tried Stadia a few months after it debuted (which was less than three years ago). I've tried other services since then. Some of these services I've revisited just to see if there was any progress.

Again, you are seeing it from just your perspective rather than looking at the entire gaming marketplace as a whole. Not everyone wants to game on PC. Not everyone wants to spend $____ on a GPU or spend half a day downloading a game. Not everyone wants to sit in front of a screen for eight hours.

It does require an always-on connection so that also limits opportunities. You can't use these services while sitting on an airplane at 35,000 feet over some ocean.

Internet speeds will get faster. Input latency will get better. Video compression algorithms will get more sophisticated. Game libraries will grow. When will all of this come together? For a few people it might already be here. For more than a few people, it's not here yet.

How many people carried cellphones in the Eighties? Nineties? Early 2000s?

It's not about everyone on the planet adopting it overnight and loving it immediately and completely.

I have relatives in their eighties who don't play video games. That's fine. They're happy doing their own thing.

No one/nothing can please everyone all the time.

But for sure, more than one company is eventually going to get their foot in the door and start turning a profit doing this. When? Who? How much? I don't know. But cloud streaming games aren't going away.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I didn't say that I enjoyed it. I said I tried it multiple times and that some people might find some of the content and gaming experience to be "good enough."

I tried Stadia a few months after it debuted (which was less than three years ago). I've tried other services since then. Some of these services I've revisited just to see if there was any progress.

Again, you are seeing it from just your perspective rather than looking at the entire gaming marketplace as a whole. Not everyone wants to game on PC. Not everyone wants to spend $____ on a GPU or spend half a day downloading a game. Not everyone wants to sit in front of a screen for eight hours.

It does require an always-on connection so that also limits opportunities. You can't use these services while sitting on an airplane at 35,000 feet over some ocean.

Internet speeds will get faster. Input latency will get better. Video compression algorithms will get more sophisticated. Game libraries will grow. When will all of this come together? For a few people it might already be here. For more than a few people, it's not here yet.

How many people carried cellphones in the Eighties? Nineties? Early 2000s?

It's not about everyone on the planet adopting it overnight and loving it immediately and completely.

I have relatives in their eighties who don't play video games. That's fine. They're happy doing their own thing.

No one/nothing can please everyone all the time.

But for sure, more than one company is eventually going to get their foot in the door and start turning a profit doing this. When? Who? How much? I don't know. But cloud streaming games aren't going away.

There are those aspects. My overall point was that the downsides vastly overshadow the upsides and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Some of the downsides will never change, such as actual game ownership.

 

[cvaldes]

There are those aspect. My overall point was that the downsides vastly overshadow the upsides and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Some of the downsides will never change, such as actual game ownership.

GeForce NOW draws from your library of games from linked services (Steam, Epic, Ubisoft, Origin, etc.). So even if GeForce NOW unplugged their servers tomorrow, you'd still own all of that content and can continue playing them on Windows PC (or even Mac and Linux if those titles are compatible).

Amusingly, Google Stadia is refunding all content purchased from the Google Stadia store. So no, Google Stadia owners lose their games but they get their money back. Whether or not all cloud gaming services will do this is unknown.

So it's really up to the individual to research what each service does and doesn't do. It's not much different than cloud music streaming services. Whether you stream Taylor Swift, Glenn Gould or Miles Davis on Apple Music, you don't own the music; you are just renting it out, like checking out a book from the library.

Heck, I donate to my local PBS station and have access to PBS Passport, their on-demand streaming library. If I stop donating, they will revoke my PBS Passport privileges.

There are many other content service providers with similar policies. It's not just the cloud streaming game services that are doing this.

I don't need to buy every book I want to read. And I don't want to. That's what libraries are for. I don't pay a separate subscription to the library; I pay taxes.

 

[AusWolf]

There are those aspect. My overall point was that the downsides vastly overshadow the upsides and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Some of the downsides will never change, such as actual game ownership.

That's exactly why I will never ever try cloud gaming, or subscribe to any game / streaming service.

Spoiler: ...

Even pirating is better than paying for something that you'll never own.

 

[cvaldes]

Since some people don't seem to understand this, cloud game streaming services don't prevent you from purchasing games. Just because Control is available on Nintendo's cloud service and GeForce NOW didn't stop me from owning it for PC.

Hell, most of the movies I watch, I probably won't watch again. Television is even more like this.

I certainly don't want to pay out of pocket for everything I hear on my local classical radio station. But I still own CDs of some compositions.

 

[AusWolf]

Since some people don't seem to understand this, cloud game streaming services don't prevent you from purchasing games. Just because Control is available on Nintendo's cloud service and GeForce NOW didn't stop me from owning it for PC.

If I paid for the game, then why would I pay for GeForce Now as well?

Hell, most of the movies I watch, I probably won't watch again. Television is even more like this.

In my opinion, if something isn't worth watching again from time to time, then it isn't worth watching even once.

I certainly don't want to pay out of pocket for everything I hear on my local classical radio station. But I still own CDs of some compositions.

Same here, although radio is free, and a great way to learn about new albums that may be worth buying.

 

[cvaldes]

If I paid for the game, then why would I pay for GeForce Now as well?

Well, not everyone has the fanciest, most powerful PC hardware. Not everyone wants to download 100 GB titles.

And how about kid titles? Is the game your child played last week going to be one they'll want to play in August 2023?

In my opinion, if something isn't worth watching again from time to time, then it isn't worth watching even once.

Admittedly I watch a lot of sports. MLB has a 162 game regular season. I don't really need to own all games to rewatch over and over. It might be worth having a Blu-ray of highlights from the team's World Series championships but I don't need every single minute of every single thing I watched.

But I do watch a bunch of educational programs on PBS. A lot of these might be nature or cooking shows. I don't follow recipes so I often watch a food show, make a mental note of some idea, and move on. A lot of documentaries are like this whether it be a nature/science show or even some sort of history like a documentary about bubonic plague in San Francisco.

Same here, although radio is free, and a great way to learn about new albums that may be worth buying.

Sure is. It's also a great way to hear albums you don't think are worth buying but are still enjoyable. That's like the majority of my radio listening hours.

Hell, I look at my CD collection (which I started in the late Eighties) and I'd say some of my tastes have changed. I still listen to the classical albums from that era but a lot of the rock/pop, meh. But I sure did like it at the time and there was no streaming option in 1986.

I listen to a lot of classical music and there are many recordings of the same piece but if I want to own something, there might only be one or two recordings I really want. I'd be happy to listen to other interpretations and recordings but that doesn't mean I want to own them.

 

[AusWolf]

Well, not everyone has the fanciest, most powerful PC hardware. Not everyone wants to download 100 GB titles.

And how about kid titles? Is the game your child played last week going to be one they'll want to play in August 2023?

I don't have a child, so fair enough, I guess.

Admittedly I watch a lot of sports. MLB has a 162 game regular season. I don't really need to own all games to rewatch over and over. It might be worth having a Blu-ray of highlights from the team's World Series championships but I don't need every single minute of every single thing I watched.

But I do watch a bunch of educational programs on PBS. A lot of these might be nature or cooking shows. I don't follow recipes so I often watch a food show, make a mental note of some idea, and move on. A lot of documentaries are like this whether it be a nature/science show or even some sort of history like a documentary about bubonic plague in San Francisco.

I know what you mean. I watch Nascar, and I've put a lot of interest into Youtube channels like PBS Space Time and Cool Worlds lately. I also like watching cooking and travel shows with the missus. Luckily, these are all free. We only have to tolerate the annoying ads when we use the TV's built-in Youtube app.

Sure is. It's also a great way to hear albums you don't think are worth buying but are still enjoyable. That's like the majority of my radio listening hours.

Hell, I look at my CD collection (which I started in the late Eighties) and I'd say some of my tastes have changed. I still listen to the classical albums from that era but a lot of the rock/pop, meh. But I sure did like it at the time and there was no streaming option in 1986.

I listen to a lot of classical music and there are many recordings of the same piece but if I want to own something, there might only be one or two recordings I really want. I'd be happy to listen to other interpretations and recordings but that doesn't mean I want to own them.

Agreed. Luckily, radio is free as well.

 

[bug]

It's still a problem, especially when you're in a battle with whatever attacks you.

I think latency is a problem only when you play with (or against) other people. For single player games I think you can tolerate an online service. It won't replace a proper PC or console, but it can be enough for a bit of fun when you're on the move or something like that.

 

[mechtech]

I didn't even know it was a thing.

I recall a ton of marketing about it becoming a thing, and that was it.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I think latency is a problem only when you play with (or against) other people.

There is most certainly that aspect, but it's not the only problem. Single player games have similar problems.

For single player games I think you can tolerate an online service.

Sorry, I've tried it and must disagree strongly.

but it can be enough for a bit of fun when you're on the move or something like that.

I would and do play games native to the mobile device.

 

[bug]

There is most certainly that aspect, but it not the only problem. Single player games have similar problems.


Sorry, I've tried it and must disagree strongly.


I would and do play game native to the mobile device.

Fair enough. Especially since you've actually tried it. I was mostly speaking about my gut feeling.

 

[l3d4231]

Google moment

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Small update:

Google Reveals ‘First Laptops Built For Cloud Gaming’ Just After Killing Stadia

New Chromebooks from Acer, ASUS and Lenovo have solid-sounding displays and fast WiFi connectivity.

www.forbes.com