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[Devilkay]

I just thinking that Stadia is very good for the developers. No more several versions for several devices. Just one.
You can make a PC game and, at the same time, a mobile game. With the same code. this is very good.

But at the start of the conference they said "A Game Platform for Everyone". But is it real? How many people have this good connection?
The 5G will be aviable (and good) just in few countries.
And what this means? Will it be free?

What is your opinione, as developer?

[Cobralad]

imagine a gaming equivalent of this

[ProgramGamer]

The main use case for Stadia is big mmos where running the whole rendering engine on a server is actually much more efficient than trying to sync the game state with a million clients. Latency is going to be a major detractor for anything heavily action oriented so I don't expect games like doom to be a huge hit on the platform.

It'll probably foster some innovation because the technology has a lot of untapped potential, but it's certainly not going to replace local machines. Plus, indie games tend to be able to run on even the most rotten of potatoes, so I don't think we'll have much of an issue with "Stadia killing indies" or what have you.

Not sure how development is going to be on this. I wonder if it'll be possible to run visual studio directly on Stadia servers haha

[Devilkay]

I don't think we'll have much of an issue with "Stadia killing indies" or what have you.

never said... 

[Superb Joe]

Seems like a solution seeking a problem that still has the same technological barriers as when it was tried 10 years ago with onlive.

I'm sure there are some good use cases, I just cant think of what they are. Unless it's heavily subsidised by invasive data scraping and ads, I don't think the audience is going to be all that large to start with, people in affluent areas with good infrastructure and an interest in games probably have a way to play the games announced so far. I don't know.

[ProgramGamer]

@Devilkay
I was just anticipating that take since a lot of attempts at disrupting the game industry have put in question the viability of indie game dev.

@Super Joe
Again, the main use case that I envision is MMOs since you won't need to sync the game state between several thousand clients at once. It'll probably also ease the burden on developers since they'll essentially be able to program an MMO as if it was a couch co-op game with a lot of monitors.

[Superb Joe]

i was thinking of mmo strictly in terms of "mmorpg" but i guess those mmo shooters they tried way back would be way more possible with a platform like this

[filbs111]

Provided the latency is low enough and the compression or bitrate is sufficiently high, this makes sense. If you can watch youtube/twitch etc and are happy with the quality, you already have a setup with sufficient bitrate/decompression ability. I guess they can also do some sort of "3d" compression by using the depth map/velocity map etc, to hide latency and reduce bitrate now too (similar to stuff used in VR).

Provided people are already paying for their internet, this should be cheaper than buying a gaming PC. Effectively you'd be buying a timeshare in one. Less loading time, no need to worry about your system setup, keeping graphics drivers up to date, managing hard drive space, figuring out what your bottleneck is. I find this stuff fun sometimes but not always.

For developers, supporting different system specs, netcode etc is indeed a hassle which this should avoid.

I'm not keen on it as a Google service though since they don't allow "adult only" content, on top of the standard google data harvesting.

[Daid]

  Seeing that the steamlink can't even provide perfect experience on my local network trough WiFi. I don't think streaming solutions are fit for everything/everywhere.

[Devilkay]

Seeing that the steamlink can't even provide perfect experience on my local network trough WiFi. I don't think streaming solutions are fit for everything/everywhere.

I agree. totally. In particolar way for country as India or countries of East Europe or city without a very good connetions in a lot of parts of the world

[TribeOfLions]

I wrote an article on Gamasutra explaining some of my thoughts on Stadia.

I basically think that Google Stadia hasn't fully considered timeless gamer behavior while also being too ahead of its time. The unnecessary Stadia controller seems to be a sign of an idea running away with itself—leaving data-driven reality far behind.

Probably if Stadia rolled out one solution at a time, building on momentum, I would be less skeptical. But right now I just see what could be a G+-sized flop.

And I don't see it as an indie-friendly platform either.

[Mark Mayers]

Some thoughts:

The revenue model isn't made public yet, but it could go one of two ways.
-If it's like Netflix, Google gives you a nice bonus paycheck to release your game on Stadia after premium sales (Steam, Epic Store, Consoles, Etc.) dry up. This would likely be a one time large payment with small payouts quarterly. Not too bad.
-If it's like Spotify, this would mean games essentially go there to die which stifles the ecosystem. Then we're F ED.

If the revenue model is the latter, we'll see mostly grindey timewastey games like what's on the mobile app store.
Not very appealing, and Google needs killer apps to sell their platform.

--

If we're talking about a 100ms+ lag, the latency will likely make certain genres impossible.
-The latest From Software game? Forget it.
-The latest sexy twitch based shooter or battle royale? Forget it.
-Competitive multiplayer games? Forget it.

This mostly implies the games on the platform will be singleplayer titles which are fine with high latency.
This could work with high budget AAA single player games (like Assassin's creed) but not for other titles.

--

The bandwidth which games require isn't feasible for most country's infrastructure.
-You won't be streaming 4k@60FPS unless you have Gigabit internet with an expensive Gigabit router, and a 4k screen....
-Most ISPs have datacaps, which makes this entire platform moot.
-To make this work, Google would need to invest in last mile infrastructure, which would cost billions/trillions.

--

Google has a lot of money to experiment with and fat cash for marketing, but I doubt Stadia is either the future OR the end.

I could also be proven wrong and video games as we know it die a horrible death ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm primarily afraid of someone like Microsoft or Sony being second to market with a streaming console to replace their main console. 
If that happens, the end is nigh.

[Schrompf]

I'm primarily afraid of someone like Microsoft or Sony being second to market with a streaming console to replace their main console. 
If that happens, the end is nigh.

Because Microsoft or Sony use different networks to deliver their streams?

Otherwise I agree: it won't be a game changer at the beginning, and it might never be one, depending on how long Google keeps up the funding. But I trust Google to royally eff up end users and content providers alike, like they did for the last ten years.

If they really try to bundle their controller with the streaming, the first road block is right there. But I haven't heard anything of that controller except for one mention in this thread, so I remain sceptical.

[Mark Mayers]

I'm primarily afraid of someone like Microsoft or Sony being second to market with a streaming console to replace their main console.  
If that happens, the end is nigh.

Because Microsoft or Sony use different networks to deliver their streams?

No, it's more about branding and market share.  

I don't think Google has a strong enough presence in the core gaming industry to shake things up (although obviously in mobile they do).
Although they have the marketing force, Stadia wouldn't have as widespread repercussions since there are 'traditional' physical alternatives from established brands.
 
However, If Microsoft and Sony choose to replace their mainstream consoles with streaming consoles.... that wouldn't be good.

Obviously it's a big leap, I don't think BOTH Microsoft and Sony would switch to streaming.
Also, there will always be PC gaming, and Nintendo would probably never do streaming either.  

I just don't think streaming will make as big of a splash as people think.

[Josh Bossie]

The only reason we keep seeing streaming popping up every few years is that its a marketer's wet dream. While there are undeniably benefits to both consumer and developer, I've yet to see a product that actually cares about those over the much more enticing option of "we can sell to people when they're at their most vulnerable and they don't even own the product and best of all - they might not even want to play it!"

Nothing about Stadia changed my mind on this. Google is notorious for just dumping a product onto the public without a lot thought or care, and I wouldn't be surprised if Stadia goes the way of Wave or Glass and just quietly dies less than 24mo from launch

[Cobralad]

I wonder if some exec picked up "Netflix for games" germ and it
 got delivered down the line as "games streaming platform"

[jamesprimate]

this seems like something completely modern-google: hugely ambitious, an intriguing direction requiring insane amounts of server infrastructure, tons of fascinating problems to throw piles of genius engineers at, with flashy buzzwords for journalists to blog over and execs get to feel cool about talking about while standing on stage, but of extremely questionable utility and highly suspicious follow-through.

unless the whole world magically gets fiber internet i very much doubt it would replace any share of established gaming markets, but very possible to open up new ones, similar to mobile (or even VR) etc., where new design paradigms offer new experiences. seems like games will need to be written somewhat specifically for the platform. there will likely be some big successes, and if so maybe even a minor goldrush as hype move in that direction and agile developers take advantage. all of which is a good thing.

but i dont think they be commin' for our consoles and steam accounts and market share just yet.

[Dre Reid]

It must be a service for first world countries with nice internet speeds and good pay.

[Richard Kain]

The potential for Stadia is huge. But we won't see that potential realized from AAA-budget level games, or even from on-line shooters. We'll see it first emerge in much humbler fare, that isn't nearly as constrained by the limitations of the current internet infrastructure.

It is easy to look at games like Doom or Assassin's Creed and claim that current broadband isn't prepared for this level of streaming. And there is ample reason to think this. It probably isn't ready. And it almost certainly isn't ready for the kind of bandwidth that would be needed for Stadia to be an instant mainstream success with games of such breadth and technical scope.

But what about games like Oregon Trail? What about a new version of Carmen Sandiego? What about game-show style games with considerably more limited interactivity and much less demands on rendering? What about retro-styled games with lower rendering requirements? What about turn-based games? Not every title has to be designed to push bandwidth to its limits. A more prudent developer might look at Stadia and begin work on a much more modest title, which mitigates the platform's weaknesses, while playing to its strengths.

Imagine Ubisoft publishing the next version of Wheel of Fortune on Stadia, and targeting 720p as the resolution. Imagine what kind of audience that could reach if they can access it with a single click in a browser.

[Dre Reid]

It will last just as long as most google projects.