There are advantages to game streaming but Google never really did anything with them, instead they just made a worse version of a console.
The marketing at the beginning was confusing. Everyone had the impression Stadia was like a Netflix for games. But it was almost the inverse, Stadia is a free gaming console but the games cost money. At the very least Google's number one pitch should have been "We're giving you a gaming console for free. You could buy a PS5 for $500 or you could play on Stadia for $0!" (In practice the free tier of Stadia didn't have the greatest quality but many people didn't even know Stadia had a free tier...)
Game streaming could have opened up new possibilities. Any YouTube game video could have a button for 'play instantly, one click' that loaded an already running Stadia session into a game-state with the player in a fun spot. YouTubers could have been able to hand off controls of their game session to viewers. "Okay GodGamer420 spamming in chat, if you think this boss is so easy, now you have control. Show us how it's done."
Even the lowest hanging fruit. The biggest advantage of game streaming is that it works on any device but Stadia didn't even work on most Android phones at launch, and for many months after.
>Any YouTube game video could have a button for 'play instantly, one click' that loaded an already running Stadia session into a game-state with the player in a fun spot. YouTubers could have been able to hand off controls of their game session to viewers.
This is very true, and it sounds really good on paper, but it seems like anything that attempts to transition content consumers to participants fail.
For example, Mixer had incredible low-latency technology and game integration, yet failed because (at least, I think) a lot of it was banking on that consumers would want to take control.
For me, at least, this would never be the case. If I'm watching my favorite Twitch streamer, I don't really want to play, I want to watch them play and see their reactions. If I wanted to play the game they're playing, I would do so (in fact, I just bought Railbound because I saw the Twitch streamer Atrioc playing it)
I think the line a lot of people have are small tokens of support (bits, donations, subscriptions), because many people don't want to be that involved.
I actually thought this was the most interesting part of the Stadia value prop. If they could have made gaming as ubiquitous as YouTube videos I don't see how they wouldn't win.
Also there is the whole scaling issue. What if you have dozens, hundreds or even thousands of viewers who want to take control? That just seems unworkable. Actual stream interaction has to be build from ground up and even then it usually takes away from the game when not in place.
> Any YouTube game video could have a button for 'play instantly, one click' that loaded an already running Stadia session into a game-state with the player in a fun spot.
I think the tech that this feature requires would be a huge thing for computing in general. Easy, lightweight state-saves for any program. Quick hibernation for any game. Imagine how much easier the Windows update problem would be if users knew they could open everything as it was before in a few seconds.
The marketing at the beginning was confusing. Everyone had the impression Stadia was like a Netflix for games. But it was almost the inverse, Stadia is a free gaming console but the games cost money. At the very least Google's number one pitch should have been "We're giving you a gaming console for free. You could buy a PS5 for $500 or you could play on Stadia for $0!" (In practice the free tier of Stadia didn't have the greatest quality but many people didn't even know Stadia had a free tier...)
Game streaming could have opened up new possibilities. Any YouTube game video could have a button for 'play instantly, one click' that loaded an already running Stadia session into a game-state with the player in a fun spot. YouTubers could have been able to hand off controls of their game session to viewers. "Okay GodGamer420 spamming in chat, if you think this boss is so easy, now you have control. Show us how it's done."
Even the lowest hanging fruit. The biggest advantage of game streaming is that it works on any device but Stadia didn't even work on most Android phones at launch, and for many months after.