Google recently announced a new game platform, called Stadia, at the 2019 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA.
It can run though any device that is capable of running Chrome, which means that they already have a huge install base ready to consume. This should make the service very lucrative, potentially, as there’s almost barrier to trying the service out. It streams over high speed internet, meaning that there’s no need for any hardware beyond what is necessary to run a web browser, nothing new to buy, well, except for the gamepad. Which, see below.
Streaming
I’m immediately disinterested in any game platform that I can’t own in the traditional, tangible sense of own. Streaming games do not appeal to me. I like physical media, I like the ability to go back and play old games that I own, whenever I wish. Streamed content is always in the control of the vendor, and is subject to updating, being discontinued, and so on. There’s no guarantee that streaming resources will continue to stream forever, and it’s virtually certain that at some point the stream will either “run dry” or stream something different than original.
The downside (I guess) of traditional owned-media is that over time you accumulate a vast library which becomes difficult to store and manage, and may deteriorate over time. If you don’t like it, you can always sell it, trade it in, give it away, or throw it in the trash, so I don’t really see why that would be a downside, but if you’re a collector like I am, you like the fact that you can keep old tech and go back and use it 10, 20, 30, even 40 or more years after it’s no longer being supported, as long as the devices that drive it continue to function or be repairable.
But that’s just me. There seems to be a lot of evidence to suggest that a convenient, well-managed service would be popular and profitable with consumers who don’t all care about history and preservation as much as I do. Look at Netflix. They are doing very well, and while people are occasionally bummed out when Netflix drops a movie from its offerings, that doesn’t seem to stop them from having a profitable business selling subscriptions to a service. If Google nails the execution, there’s no reason to believe they won’t likewise be as successful, if not more.
The controller
A very standard, generic looking dual analog stick gamepad. Initial impressions are that it doesn’t look especially comfortable in the hand compared to the competition. Google didn’t need to innovate here, gamepad design is pretty mature today, even if companies like Nintendo continue to dare to try new ideas (Switch, Wii U, Wii). Still, I’m not sure why Google would emphasize their controller given that it is so very unremarkable in its design. Given that the controller appears to offer nothing new, one wonders why Stadia wouldn’t simply leverage any/all existing “standard” dual-stick gamepads.
To answer that question, there are two additional buttons: a youtube integration button, and a help button. The help button enables gamers to request help with overcoming some part of the game, somehow, without having to leave the game. Which, I guess is appealing, but man, I’m gonna miss the brutal, unforgiving difficulty, and the completely arcane hidden secrets that you can only figure out if someone tells you what to do, so you had to go buy a book or magazine that made you want to kill yourself from the NES and Atari era. I guess the help button takes the place of the magazine, but it’s just not going to be the same. The youtube button makes it so easy to set up a gamer streaming channel that everyone in the world can do it, which means billions of youtube channels that no one will be able to wade through to find the good ones. Probably. This will likely also kill the professional youtuber/patreon beggar gig that so many of the popular streamers have been doing for the past few years. I guess that’s maybe a bit harsh, naive, and premature, but the bottom line it will become very competitive and difficult to differentiate yourself from other random streamers, so the ones that will stand out will have to be unbelievably good and work very hard to attract and keep an audience.
Do we need another gaming platform?
I’m intrigued by anything Google does, and they have the resources and innovative thinking to do things that few other companies can. That said, I’m not really seeing a need for yet another new game platform. Whether Google can differentiate itself from Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Steam, etc. remains to be seen. While it’s hard to bet against a company with the resources that Google has, they’ve had notable failed ventures in the past: Wave, Plus, etc. and have been known to discontinue even popular projects (Reader) leaving fans with little recourse. Will it work? Probably. Even if it doesn’t, it’ll probably be a few years before Google pulls the plug on it or pivots to something else. But it seems like they’re serious about competing in this already-crowded sphere.
It will be interesting to watch.
The Writing on the Wall
What really strikes me about this is, if Google can stream applications as powerful and resource hungry and demanding as videogames, instantly, anywhere, they can do that for any software. What does this say about IT departments in every other company on the planet? We’re pretty much obsolete at that point, aren’t we? It might be a good time to think about early retirement, and finding a second career. Maybe a livestreaming channel.