Goodbye Stadia
I was an early adopter of Stadia but since it was a Google product I was hesitant to put any money towards it (see killedbygoogle.com if haven’t already 🙃), and if you’re not living under a gaming/technological rock you’ve likely heard that Stadia was shutting down this month… let me back up a bit.
If you’re not familiar with Google’s Stadia product (RIP) it’s premise was essentially the Netflix of video games. Stream 4k video games with a Chromecast (or a web browser) from Google’s servers to your living room. You don’t have to worry about game updates, you don’t have to worry about computer updates. And you don’t have to wait for large game downloads. Just turn on the controller and start playing from where you left off.
The controller 🎮 had some magic in it as well because you could use the same controller and continue your game from your iPhone or computer, or living room TV. (I actually really like the Stadia controller and I’m very pleased that they released a firmware update to unlock the bluetooth functionality).
I was actually the perfect target demographic for Stadia. I was a gamer when I was younger but college/university, marriage, kids, and work had me focused on other priorities for many years. I also didn’t own any consoles or gaming computers. And there’s always been this little part of me that’s wanted to be able to try out some of the newer games that have come out with crazy good graphics.
Enter Stadia: inexpensive hardware and al a cart AAA games on my terms. And I have to say it almost delivered on it’s promise. In 2021 I had a blast playing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order while my kids watched on the couch coaching and correcting my every move as I slowly beat the increasingly difficult worlds and bosses. I’ll never forget the moment my kids and I stood up and cheered after I got the amazing [NOT A SPOILER] on the mountain.
That’s not to say the experience was flawless, but it was really close. I experienced a few glitches here and there but I was largely able to turn on the TV, select my game, and pretty quickly get going. I remember one night it kept freezing for about 15 minutes and I gave up after turning off the Chromecast three times to no avail. Other than that I didn’t have any major issues during gameplay.
I had another moderately frustrating issue with the hardware. After turning on the Stadia controller it was supposed to automatically turn on the TV and load up Stadia. Turning the controller on would actually turn on the TV as expected but then the Chromecast would show “no connection” or some related message and I would have to power cycle it for it to turn on properly. I ended up having my Chromecast replaced due to this issue, but if I remember correctly it still happened intermittently afterward.
Regardless of these small(ish) issues, ultimately, it seems the product didn’t have the adoption that Google needed to justify keeping it around.
A few other reasons why I think Stadia didn’t make it include its confusing business model and it’s limited game selection.
It really did have a confusing model. Originally I thought it was a Netflix for games and then for the longest time I didn’t know if I had to buy games at full price or pay a monthly membership fee or if I needed both. It looks like they eventually settled on two options: 1) offering Stadia for free and you just need to buy the games for full or discounted prices, and 2) you could pay $10 monthly and get unlimited play of whatever was on that month’s game streaming title lineup.
Another big issue was that they had a pretty limited selection of games. I personally felt this a lot. I would search for a game I was interested in and then realize that the available game options were much, much smaller. It turns out, I wasn’t really interested in most of their games. And for the longest time I don’t even think you could search the games at all. I think I only bought like three games in total which clearly isn’t sustainable if the adoption was already quite low.
Combine the confusing purchase model with a small game selection and a technology that was arguably ahead of its time and required a decent internet speed and we have lackluster adoption.
So Goodbye Stadia, Hello SteamDeck?
-Jesse