The Magic of State Share, Explained
Have you ever found a gaming video or seen a screenshot of someone else’s gaming experience, and wished you could jump in and play what you saw? With Stadia’s State Share feature, your game can support just that — gamers can jump in and play what they see in videos and screenshots shared via links or on YouTube.
How it works
Games that choose to integrate State Share can pass game state data to Stadia during gameplay. Stadia will record these states along with any media such as a video, screenshot or live stream created through the platform.
When the player chooses to share the media, they are asked for consent to include their game states along with the shared media. If consent is given, viewers will see a button next to the media that allows them to play the experience they see. Those who click on the button will be brought into Stadia to play the game associated with the corresponding state. Stadia will launch the game with the state, and it is up to the game to use the data within the state to tailor the experience for the new gamer.
Some possibilities for State Share
As with all of our features, we provide a set of examples of what we think could work well, but you should use the features as fits best in your game. Some ideas we had:
Procedurally generated world: If your game has a procedurally generated world where no two gamers would have the same experience, you could integrate State Share to provide the random number generator seed as a state. When someone shares a video of their version of your world, others can find that video and jump into that same world.
User generated content: If your game has user generated content such as custom maps, you could integrate State Share and provide the map as a state, so that when someone shares a unique custom map via a screenshot, others can find that screenshot and jump into that map.
Promotional giveaways: If you want to generate engagement, you can integrate State Share and run a promotional event where there is a special item in the game that is difficult to find, and only those who jump in from a video with a specific state would be granted the item.
Speed runs: If you had a huge speed running community, you could integrate State Share into your game and allow those who find a speed run video to challenge or race against the ghost of the gamer who posted the video.
The possibilities are endless. We can’t wait to see what you dream up!