Stadia - Google's game streaming service

KK wrote:I’m sure lessons were learned.

One of the biggest industry mistakes in a long time, but like the last great gaming flop, the N-Gage, the concept itself is clearly ahead of its time and genuinely the future of gaming (whether you or I happen to like it or not).

The QD was a genuinely good handheld. The machine sadly died once its great exclusives were coming out which was a great shame. Pocket Kingdom was so far ahead of its time it’s unreal.

Did anyone ever trust Google to keep this around? I used to be all in on google services for everything but their propensity to sunset products the moment they stop being wildly profitable is so frustrating as an end user.

Some dude on Twitter is getting $2,200 back, said he loved the service…

Guy at work had one though only had one game for it.
He's hoping that they unlock the controller to allow it to be used as a generic Bluetooth controller since he really likes it.

Last edited by Abacus on Fri Sep 30, 2022 11:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's really disappointing. Despite the scepticism, it worked really well as a streaming service - far better than any other streaming service I've tried. I also liked the convenience and portability of it, and even though the game library was limited, there's more than enough decent stuff to play on there.

It was probably always doomed from the moment they stopped making their own games.

But I can't be angry about it. If they really do refund everything, and my current games can be played until January (about £200 worth), then effectively I've been playing loads of games for free.

You can export your game saves somehow, if there's anything I want to carry on playing after January.

And I'll be left with a couple of (free) Chromecast sticks. Plus a couple of controllers - which are surprisingly decent, so I'm also hoping there's a way to use these going forward on other devices - be a shame to not be able to use some pretty capable hardware. But I guess it hasn't cost me anything if not.

And it did have the best version of Cyberpunk at launch.

All in all, given that I've lost nothing, played free games, and ended up with some stuff, I think Google have handled this about as well as they could have from a customer perspective.

I think the biggest nail in the Stadia coffin was never living up to the "Netflix of games" hype. That was what people wanted and expected from it before launch and the Stadia Pro subscription never lived up to that.
Then Microsoft came along and delivered exactly that with Gamepass.

If you wanted a streaming service where you had to purchase games outright then GeForce Now was a way better option. You could buy a supported game on Steam/Epic/GoG and take advantage of giveaways/sales on those platforms, meaning way lower purchase prices than Stadia, and in the event of cancelling your sub you still owned the games and could play them on your own PC.

Have they expressly stated it, or is everyone just assuming you get to keep the hardware they’re refunding?

rinks wrote:Have they expressly stated it, or is everyone just assuming you get to keep the hardware they’re refunding?

I got an e-mail from Google today confirming the refund (i.e.that it will be processed by the time the services close down in January). It's not specific re the hardware, but this is from 'business insider';

Google is refunding all Stadia games, add-on DLC, and hardware. That includes all Stadia controllers and Stadia "Play and Watch" Chromecast packages. You don't need to return anything to get your refund.

They might have it wrong, but it seems to make sense. After all, the only hardware is a Chromecast stick and the controller. It would cost them money to get the controller returned, and then you'd wonder what they'd want them back for. Likewise, the Chromecast stick, which is a version they don't even sell separately anyway.

That’s all good then. They could have insisted on returns to deter people who’d rather keep the devices, and save themselves some refund costs.

Yeah, that's true.

I'm not sure how they'd have done that, though. For example, I bought a Chromecast plus controller for £19.99 on a promotion.

I could have had to send them both back for a refund. But I could have equally claimed that the controller was effectively worthless - not through a faulty product, but due to a decision they had made. Therefore, how much of the £19.99 relates to the controller, and how much to the Chromecast stick?

Likewise, I bought Cyberpunk for £49.99 with the free Chromecast and controller deal. How much of that £49.99 related to the game, and how much to the hardware?

I imagine they'll have thought of the costs of the class action lawsuit that all 12 of the worldwide Stadia owners could have brought, and backed right off.

Abacus wrote:Yeah, that's true.

I'm not sure how they'd have done that, though. For example, I bought a Chromecast plus controller for £19.99 on a promotion.

I could have had to send them both back for a refund. But I could have equally claimed that the controller was effectively worthless - not through a faulty product, but due to a decision they had made. Therefore, how much of the £19.99 relates to the controller, and how much to the Chromecast stick?

Likewise, I bought Cyberpunk for £49.99 with the free Chromecast and controller deal. How much of that £49.99 related to the game, and how much to the hardware?

I imagine they'll have thought of the costs of the class action lawsuit that all 12 of the worldwide Stadia owners could have brought, and backed right off.

You'll be refunded what you paid.

How much is this going to cost them? I know they are one of the 5 "big tech" companies (Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft) and it's not going to ruin them but surely this is going to go down in history as one of the biggest financial failures in the gaming market?

Johnny Ryall wrote:How much is this going to cost them? I know they are one of the 5 "big tech" companies (Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft) and it's not going to ruin them but surely this is going to go down in history as one of the biggest financial failures in the gaming market?

I think this will be far less than MS spent on the ring of death fixes.

Well, I've just worked it out, and I'll be getting £263 some time in January. So I for one will get to have the heating on for a couple of days.

Multiply that by 12 and ...

Anyway, it must have cost hundreds of millions of pounds developing the platform, making the games, buying access to games from other developers, all of the hardware promotions.

That said, they are talking about using some of the tech in other things. So, maybe they'll recover some of it.

It's a shame because they didn't do anything evil, lock people out of games via exclusives, and had made a genuinely affordable and workable service.

I get that people are always delighted when Big Corporation A makes a mistake. But it doesn't really benefit gamers by not trying anything new and keeping it to the same closed shop.

Like I say, the minute they stopped funding new games was the point they should have left. Instead of which they limped on, but at least not in a way that any customer has lost out. So, fair play.

This is the worst side to the debacle: small devs who were banking on imminently releasing games on Stadia, sometimes exclusively. Now they don’t know where they stand. Google should really put their hands in their pockets for them too. Or maybe MS could rescue them and put them on Game Pass for a PR win.
https://www.eurogamer.net/the-games-at- ... tting-down

I wonder if Sony are wondering about renting or licensing the server tech from Google to run PS+ EX Plus Alpha level streaming outside of consoles so you can play on mobile?

I echo what everyone else has said in here. I've made out with a free 4k Chromecast, controller, and a copy of cyberpunk and Sekiro.

Great tech, terrible business.

I hear Phil Harrison is moving to be head of Amico.

Ironically if Google had said right from the start they would offer full refunds in the event they shut the service down it probably would've been popular enough that Google wouldn't have shut it down.

Got an email this morning saying the refund processing has begun, to be complete by 18 Jan when the service closes down. That length of time is apparently because they refund to the card you bought stuff from, and some will be expired or closed etc, so might take longer in those cases.

Mine should be quite simple, so interested to see how smoothly it works in practice.

Also, and this isn't officially confirmed anywhere, but I read that some publishers (mainly Ubisoft) were looking at ways to be able to transfer your purchases elsewhere for free e.g. on to pc, no matter that you're being refunded as well. Which would be a nice bonus for some, though I don't have a gaming pc at the moment myself. Good if that actually happens though.

One other thing people were hoping for was to unlock the controller's Bluetooth to be able to use that on other devices. No word on that - I'd be surprised but happy if they did.

I really do like the controller and use it all the time, probably because I got one of those Orzly plastic phone clips you attach to it for a few quid. This lets me play on my phone anywhere and it's also pretty useful as a phone stand for watching films etc.

You can get similar ones for the Xbox controller and I'm a big fan of them - though I'm much happier flinging my Stadia controller in a rucksack rather than breaking an Xbox one, & it feels pretty robust.

Anyway, even without the Bluetooth, you can still connect the controller to a pc or phone, e.g. to play X-Cloud, just with a cable instead of Bluetooth. So it might become my mobile phone controller for X-Cloud instead once Stadia shuts down. So hopefully it'll have some use beyond being a phone stand for Netflix after January.

Incidentally, since the closure announcement, I've been putting in the time to bash through as much of my game library as possible, to get the most of them and to help decide whether I like them enough to buy some of them again on another platform. Been really enjoying it.

And I've still been massively impressed by how well those games are all running, even while the service is on its last legs. Except for those that depend on selling microtransactions, of course, though maybe that's a benefit. It's been seamless - maybe there isn't the volume of traffic through the servers now which helps with performance, but it's a crying shame the technology won't live on.

For a comparison, I have been playing - again on my phone through the same WiFi connection - on X-Cloud, and it's not in the same league performance wise. No wonder people distrust streaming if that's how they've experienced it, as it's very much secondary to playing on the hardware.

Stadia - Google's game streaming service

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