Lies, Broken Promises and The Death of Google Stadia

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In four decades, gaming has evolved from a niche hobby to a multibillion dollar industry. Sony and Microsoft gained ground 20-plus years ago, cementing themselves as integral parts of the business. Recent years have seen other non-gaming enterprises enter the race, too, hoping to cut themselves a slice of the very lucrative pie. But unfamiliarity with game development’s myriad idiosyncrasies placed the likes of Amazon in a difficult position, thus resulting in canceled projects and layoffs.
When Google threw its hat into the ring with Stadia, the expectation was that the conglomerate had learned from its competitor’s mistakes. However, Google’s penchant for abandoning risky ventures left many to believe Stadia would constitute a yet another short-lived experiment. The company wasted no time proving the skeptics right.
Stadia launched as a cloud-based gaming solution designed to lower the barrier of entry to Triple-A experiences. On top of investing on a technological level, Google also positioned game creation at the forefront of its vision. Ambitions of producing multimillion-dollar IP informed its lofty goals, engendering the establishment of the Stadia Games and Entertainment division that oversaw first-party studios.
Unfortunately, pre- and post-launch missteps later revealed that Google put the cart before the horse, building advanced technology before partnering with developers who knew how best to leverage it. And when a team of industry veterans did finally come on board, senior leadership expected near-immediate results without the necessary resources in play. As a result, Stadia’s quick demise is far from the only victim of Google’s mismanagement.
This is the tragedy of Google Stadia.
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2:38 The Tragedy of Google Stadia
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[@GVMERS]

🌎Check out Instant Gaming for some great deals ↣ www.instant-gaming.com/en/giveaway/GVMERS

[@Swordslinger-hb1ns]

This documentary has been a VERY long time coming. Thank you for this momentous occasion GVMERS.

[@Kagarin05]

Are they even reputable? Seems like a shady G2A knock off probably selling stolen codes..

[@Tito4349]

that site is just a reskin of g2a, you aren't supporting developers at that point

[@MikeTheGreek]

You should implement subtitles to your videos. Not everyone knows fluent English. Only a handful have subs.

[@wrakowic]

Please don't accept sponsorship offers from sites that sell codes that were purchased using stolen cards.

[@NewMateo]

I won a blue stadia founders edition from a raffle and that thing is still in the box sealed - I hope to sell it in 20 years when it becomes some ancient esoteric piece of video game history. Maybe people wont even want it then lol

[@alanlee67]

Unlikely. A virtual boy only fetches 200 usd and that thing is way more desirable and rare than a stadia controller which probably won't even be compatible with anything in 20 years

[@Blueisbird157]

Depends on if it is opened I guess

[@NewMateo]

@@alanlee67 I think though people buy this stuff for collecting rather than using. like a sealed device usually stays sealed so its not like they get used at all. Right now sealed founders edition are listed for 200 on auction. You never know right?

[@Lifesizemortal]

People WILL want it. Keep that thing

[@NewMateo]

@@Blueisbird157 yeah its sealed. updated my comment. I just didnt care enough to ever use it.

[@yearight1205]

I work in an industry that has leadership that think they're the big dogs. Yet everyone knows that they're idiots. So everything is goofy and takes forever or just never happens. Such is the cost when you put the wrong people in charge.

[@37Kilo2]

I've worked in many industries, even the military. My experience is that leadership is almost always full of idiots. The people who don't want to lead are usually the people who should lead.

[@theguy9208]

I think close to 8/10 places i worked had the same issues. Clear issues on the ground but ownership is so cheap and so stupid they wait until shit grinds to a screeching halt before anything changes

[@DimitriosChannel]

Biden administration?

[@ronoc9]

What is it like to work at EA?

[@cyxceven]

That's everywhere.

[@triptothemoon8171]

I like the video but I think you have sold the subject a little bit short. There’s lot of areas you didn’t cover such as the purported features that never materialised, the baffling business model, the handling of the layoffs, etc. I’d love to see you cover this again in more depth in the future with a longer video

[@LT.dans_new_legs]

Seconded. Felt a bit thin

[@jackkain7141]

Agreed. Was expecting a comparison between Nvidia Now and Stadia's pricing and games model as another reason why people were uninterested in adopting Stadia.

[@danielhayes3607]

Did you even watch? Everything you say is covered. A longer video would be boring. I get it it's fun to hate Google

[@PerpetualAlfa]

@@danielhayes3607 I don’t think it’d be boring. GVMERS make really good videos. Have you watched any of their other videos which are nearly an hour long? They’re really well researched and produced. I’m sure they could make a longer video going deeper into the demise of Stadia and it would be equally as engaging as their other documentaries for sure.

[@georgy.design]

This. The fact that they sold it as a game console, not just a tech is baffling. Nvidia Now is amazing since it is not only works, but you can use your own library of games (Steam, Origin, etc) - Stadia, on another hand, required you too buy games at their store which is insanely stupid idea to begin with. Gladly, they refunded money for games bought on Stadia.

[@PXAbstraction]

In the dictionary under Failing Upward, there's a picture of Phil Harrison. How he keeps getting better jobs in this industry despite his long track record of failures baffles me.

[@Skullet]

I think Jade Raymond's picture might be next to Phil's, I don't know why people keep giving these people jobs.

[@PXAbstraction]

@@Skullet Jade Raymond has a solid track record. She produced the initial Assassin's Creed games which were megahits, started Ubisoft Toronto (still successful today), started EA Motive (still successful), and then when to Stadia. After that, she started Haven Studios, which was just sold to PlayStation. Phil Harrison led New Atari into its worst sales in a decade, oversaw PlayStation's studios during the "giant enemy crab" phase, helped run Xbox during the epic fail of the original Xbox One launch and then led the failure of Stadia. The two people are not remotely comparable.

[@LisaLisa-ii9bw]

maybe google believed in motto other peoples garbage in another man treasure😃

[@8fconsulting147]

Also in the dictionary an entry that states “See Biden, Joe”

[@KenDAKL4ever]

The idea of paying Google for the right to pay for games you really don't own was a bad idea. It should have been Netflix style: pay a monthly or yearly fee for access to whatever game library they could put together. You still would have other issues but I think that would have sold more.

[@beres_davif]

but i did own it, otherwise i wouldnt get a refund from stadia

[@KenDAKL4ever]

@@beres_davif 0h,0k then, that's one good thing I guess

[@igodreamer7096]

And just like Netflix, one day all of sudden that game that you was so invested just vanished from the library. Nah, this business model is fraud and the responsibles should be charge over it.

[@jarnobot]

@@igodreamer7096 Or even worse, your account gets banned out of nowhere and Google's "support" is impossible to reach. When you do reach them they still won't tell why you got banned. Gone are not only all your purchased games, but also your email, your files and photo's/video's in your drive and more. I'm not making this stuff up, it happens. A few years back there was an article on the dutch website Tweakers about two cases like this. Iirc, I think one of the cases was a Microsoft account, but the point still stands. The account was also used for purchases of Xbox games and Windows Licenses were linked as well. All gone. In the end the most probable cause was a photo of his child in bath that was automatically uploaded to his drive being flagged as CP. Nobody would tell him why or do something to revert the ban.

[@Amfortas]

That's what I thought Stadia was gonna be

[@consumeproduce]

I worked at Google for close to two years covering the period when they wrapped up up their VR aspirations with Daydream and started dabbling in gaming. Google is fundamentally a business that moves late to market with a highly risk averse position that gives little to no time to deliver success before they kill an entire division. At this point, google has nothing to add to the market except a pretty decent cellphone. Alphabet, the holding company that owns google, has a pattern of short term internal funding the hunt for unicorns on the hopes they might find another multi-billion dollar revenue steeam. because they don't NEED the money from entrepreneurial activity they're hyper sensitive to killing experiments when they realise that at best they're only going to deliver moderate ROI or new income.

[@wombat7961]

This makes sense, they discount their phones heavily almost immediately. They are almost entirely funded by ads, which i dont mind, they give back and donate to organizations constantly. I learned recently they donated to the organizations for housing relife for pandemic... Google helped pay my rent!

[@__goat__]

"Google is fundamentally a business that moves late to market " Waymo started when no one thought autonomous cars were possible and now they are a few years ahead of anyone else. What's the ROI of Waymo? The decision to buy KZbin was done pretty early when it wasn't clear how internet would evolve, and now it's a monopoly. Google Books was pretty crazy even though it didn't work out (wasn't their fault). They entered the Smartphone market later than Apple, but unlike Microsoft, Nokia and Blackberry they were still quick enough. Unlike Meta they also nailed the timing transitioning to subscription models instead of relying on ad revenue. You mentioned VR/AR, that would be a market where they entered 10 years too early. I think they have a pretty good track record, and I highly doubt you would have done better if it was your company. But feel free to prove us wrong, maybe you could join Neeva on its journey to destroy Google lol

[@ResidentWeevil2077]

Nah, not even the Pixel is worth the materials used to manufacture it. I used to own a Pixel before completely abandoning Android altogether in favour of iPhone and iOS. I love how synchronized the hardware and software are to each other within the Apple ecosystem. Overpriced and manipulative? Perhaps, but then Google made fun of Apple for not including expandable storage when the first Pixel also did not have expandable storage. Currently a moot point these days, but it was the first time I started to question Google and my usage of Android.

[@jonny-b4954]

@@__goat__ you're ignoring the literal like hundred projects that were just like OP is talking about though.

[@amentco8445]

@@wombat7961 Yeah, look into what the charities they donate actually do. Then look into what Google supports politically, their actions, and whom they funnel most of that cash. You know that there would have been little economic damage due to the "pandemic" if corporations like Google didn't push the fear mongering that allowed lockdowns to be considered a decent idea?

[@Kenshin6321]

"...and the company wasted no time proving their skeptics right." Lowkey savage though lol.

[@phr3ui559]

anime pfp

[@CIOTECHSFX]

@@phr3ui559 .

[@martabakcoding7784]

Not anime its game

[@phr3ui559]

@@CIOTECHSFX what

[@trustytrest]

@@phr3ui559 default pfp

[@BroadwayRonMexico]

It amazes me how Phil Harrison managed to get the job at Stadia in the first place. He already was a key player in not one, but two disastrous console launches (the PS3 and Xbox One), and yet Google still put him in charge of their game division for its big platform launch

[@unicorntomboy9736]

I am thinking about writing a report about the history of Google Stadia at some point this year for my final year of college

[@michaelgum97]

Because why bother to look up people’s history to see if they screwed over major projects in their past? /s

[@BroadwayRonMexico]

@@michaelgum97 When you put it that way, it reminds me of how Sergey Titov, the main guy behind Big Rigs got hired by Riot Games as a technical director for League of Legends

[@michaelgum97]

@@BroadwayRonMexico Are you serious?

[@BroadwayRonMexico]

@@michaelgum97 yep. Look it up

[@TheBrokenEclipse]

It was really interesting to hear how badly Google managed the entire Stadia project

[@mravg79]

Based on my observations I would say they do not understand gaming industry. This is a long time investment with huge cost if a company wants to get into this difficult market. Google has often showed they have approach “fail fast”. This approach is not bad for many projects but for gaming it might not be a correct approach. Often it is easier for a small studio a few/developers to be successful as they can start small, release a game that people like earn, expand. For big company like google people have different expectations which google itself set high by their marketing messaging. And what they released looked like a beta, they wanted to charge for full price. They wanted to start recouping the cost asap, while a better solution would be to do an open beta with reduced price for the early adopters. And add more features before going from beta to v1.0. So how they managed the project seems inline of many other google projects. But the problem was this did not fit the market they were trying to step in. The good part is that google decided to issue full refunds for games as well as hardware.

[@schizophreniegenie]

@@mravg79 i agree with your assessment. the main cancer that has been introducing malicious business practices in games was driven by the muppets shown in the video, the bald VP dude and this jade chick are good examples. they most likely never touched a game in their lives but they have an MBA from an ivy league uni and have a proven track record of increasing revenue...

[@johndodo2062]

@@mravg79 I'm pretty sure they didn't refund everything they were supposed to

[@hemme100]

They trash

[@messwithhelpy]

Ya Googlers Are All Idiots Huh?

[@rare437]

Companies should take the hint. If you come into the industry and say "We're the future of video games", 9 times out of 10, you're gonna fail, hard.

[@evandaymon8303]

It’s in similar vain of calling a game/app a x killer. Anything that makes a claim it will defeat something will ultimately be defeated themselves because they have too much expectations to be like said thing but better

[@BacklTrack]

Don't 9/10 companies fail regardless?

[@UmVtCg]

It most definitely is not Steaming, it can't be never. The laws of nature prevent it.

[@mattjindrak]

@@BacklTrack starting a business is such a scam. You spend all this money and you're gonna fail anyway

[@TheotherTempestfox]

The funny part is Game streaming is actually becoming a big thing. Geforce now, Xbox Gamepass cloud streaming. Sony and Nintendo streaming back compatible games from their library. The concept could have worked. But their buisness model was a flop and their execution sucked.

[@Abezilla]

This is one of the rare instances that I knew from the beginning that Stadia was bound to fail. And I think most people knew as well.

[@gregorymirabella1423]

yeah, game streaming just doesn't work, and hopefully nobody else tries this garbage tactic.

[@freddiejohnson6137]

I said Stadia would fail when it was announced as OnLive failed and that actually had features that were ahead of its time. I was met with people telling me Stadia couldn't fail because Google had too much money. If you repeat the exact business model a someone who came before and failed doing it then obviously you didn't bother learning from their mistakes.

[@37Kilo2]

Same. It was always people on Reddit who argued with me that Stadia would last. I always pointed them to 'Killed by Google', and they doubled down, said that Stadia would be the product that survived. I'd just roll my eyes and move on. You can't convince those that drank the koolaid.

[@lePoMo]

well, Stadia would last as long as google wants it to. It is only a failure if google decides it is. obviously everyone knew even before it launched that google would eventually decide it is a failure, the only question was when.

[@SweBeach2023]

Broadband speeds were far slower when OnLive were released, we have in the last ten years seen a more or less tenfold increase.

[@numberyellow]

I remember getting into an argument with some idiot in the comments section of another video a few years ago, about how cloud computing was the way forward, and how it was superior to any other solution, and this fool used stadia as an example of how great it was, and why it was "the future". All i can see now, is that "where is your god now?" meme 🤣

[@somethinglikethat2176]

The funny thing about the Google's money argument was that Microsoft has more cash, a bigger market cap and a ton of infrastructure, hardware, IP and studios. Amazon has studios, tons of infrastructure, ect. Sony, Nvidia, ect all had a plan and certain advantages. Google was just showing up going look at us we're Google

[@nohrianscum9791]

There was one strange high point for Stadia that wasn't mentioned here: Outside of high end PCs, it was one of the most stable ways to play Cyberpunk at launch. It was plenty buggy, but less prone to crashes than the console versions.

[@jankrnac3535]

Still it was also on Geforce now. And there you was able to play copie from Steam or Gog.

[@Soundsaboutright42]

I laughed when this came out, and laughed when it failed. I got a free one and it still remains unopened in my closet. Google loves to get things 90% done and not a percentage more.

[@redtheyiffer]

Hey, it might be a free decent quality pc controller if they ever unlocked the bluetooth feature.

[@GARCIIIAmonster]

want to make a google+ group about their products?

[@Anxiou5Panda]

@@GARCIIIAmonster Okay, this made my night 😂

[@Soundsaboutright42]

@@redtheyiffer aye true, the silver lining 😂

[@almanac4150]

@@redtheyiffer They actually announced they are unlocking the Bluetooth this week. 10/10 is a great controller

[@someaccount659]

Stadia was a bad idea from the start. I remember someone saying “imagine have lag on Skyrim” and yeah that pretty much summed it up

[@evlofenn]

Think plenty of people have modded Skyrim so much they didn't have to imagine the lag 🤭

[@truepatriot6657]

It was way ahead of time, after 5G it'll become common & physical console will be just like landline phones

[@TheOldMan-75]

Worked perfectly fine for me and I got all my money back. I really can’t complain

[@numberyellow]

@@truepatriot6657 spoken like someone who has no understanding of technology. and don't come back at me about how knowledgeable you are, because if that were true, then you'd see that your comparison was apples and oranges.

[@numberyellow]

@Android / i prefer physical media too... however, the market shift toward digital distribution has made it impossible, a lot of the time, to even GET a physical copy of certain things.

[@kodemasterx]

Phill Harrison's legacy: PS3, XBONE and STADIA... That man is a curse LOL

[@ashleythomas4112]

Only PS3 overcame his curse and did well.

[@ThommyofThenn]

I'm never disappointed in these videos. This is game journalism done properly.

[@danross1038]

Videos like these are a complete joke. They didn't even mention how diverse and inclusive Google as a company is. Maybe if white men weren't such bigots, Stadia would have succeeded.

[@ThommyofThenn]

@@danross1038 you're so right. There should have been at least 10 minutes dedicated to diversity. I can't agree more

[@daakrolb]

I hope that’s sarcasm.

[@hemme100]

Nah is beating a dead horse while it's already dead

[@ThommyofThenn]

@@hemme100 as if mainstream game journalism is something better?? I'm not understanding

[@mephistovonfaust]

The moment they decided to announce a gaming service where you buy a game only being accessible to play while the service was online, it was doomed to fail. That, plus the imposed limitations like only being able to play on certain devices and only with their controller. They should have partnered with a platform like Valve from the very beginning, just like you buy Steam games on Nvidia's GeForce Now platform. Stadia just had nothing going for it. It did nothing better than the competition and a lot of things much worse.

[@arthurdurham]

Technically buying anything off Steam is just a license to get it as long as Steam is around.

[@sssspider]

@@arthurdurham Technically buying a hard copy of a game is just a license to use it until bit rot renders the disk unplayable.

[@TripleG102]

Cope

[@belyayevsfox4753]

@@sssspider At least the data on the disc can be copied to another storage device so that the game doesn't die with it. With cloud-only gaming, your game library is entirely at the discretion of the server owners, and the death of many live service games shows that server-based services are far from long-lasting.

[@LazarheaD]

Thank you for pointing this out. If you chose Stadia, you'd be locked into their ecosystem forever, having to stream your games instead of choosing Nvidia GFN and once getting a better PC, being able to play natively your downloaded library from Steam with minimal latency.

[@tayischil]

For context from a product designer in tech, google is notorious for develop, market, abandon. Promotion cycles are based around quick turn around for delivery of product even if it isn't ready. It gives incentives for management to deliver and move to a new department at a higher level rather than actually build a long term supported partner ecosystem and why Google's catalog is full of dead initiatives. There is a lot more here than just a change in business priorities and exposes a deep problem with Google's project management beyond Stadia.

[@JaitsuStudios]

The thing that really ticks me off about this whole thing is that you just know Googles higher ups will not learn a damn thing from this.

[@Kameleonic]

Well, they will learn to shut down a project sooner rather than later;)

[@UmVtCg]

So, who cares, just never rely on any Google service that does not extract a huge amount ad revenue. Stadia was doomed from the start. As all game streaming services are. It's just like flying cars and hooverboards. Great for Sci-fi not practical in the real world.

[@Vanq17]

Just another case of Phil Harrison failing his way upwards... This man is a walking disaster that just keeps getting work, for some strange reason.

[@NoExplosionsMcgee]

Maybe we can take advantage of how cursed he is by encouraging him to join up on corrupt corporations like Comcast or Verizon? Would do humanity a whole lot of good if he unknowingly destroyed them by accident.

[@eyesofnova]

Google's reputation for dumping services is the reason I never considered even using stadia.

[@trobriandstorm]

The least reliable company on earth

[@marcospenadev]

@@trobriandstorm As a developer that's also true. Google has cool tech for devs, but diving into it is a gamble that it may dissapear tomorrow.

[@Neoyoshi-FFXIV]

I was one of project stream testers that was selected to play Assassins Creed Odyssey. I was fortunate to already have Fiber internet thanks to a network infrastructure that had just gone live in the part of New York that i live in, so my experiences with project stream was pretty much bugfree for the most part. They ended up giving us the copy of Odyssey for free to link to a Ubisoft account once the test was wrapping up. It was a really fun journey to be a part of, I'm saddened that Stadia never became what it could have been, because playing a AAA video game in a web-browser on Ultra settings was just.... amazing.

[@pickeljarsforhillary102]

Hiring Phil Harrison is the first sign any project is doomed to failure.

[@HalloweenSurfboard]

When your more excited for this video then google stadia..

[@UmVtCg]

Who in the fuck gets exited for a game streaming service. You might as well get exited for a vasectomy followed by an endoscopy

[@ToadyEN]

I’d say it’s a success for the gamers tbh

[@TheHarshWay]

Phil Harrison is truly an expert at failing upwards

[@fireaza]

You'd think a big tech company like Google would be aware that radically new tech can take quite awhile before it finally start to pick up pace. If Google had been the origin of smartphones, they probably would have killed off the concept around the release of what would have been the iPhone 3G.

[@quicklern818]

I bought a Stadia for Cyberpunk (that’s a whole other issue) because I don’t own a gaming rig and I couldn’t get a PS5 or Xbox in 2020. Honestly, the game played fantastic and looked great for about 25 hours until latency issues kicked in. I do think cloud gaming is the future, but the future isn’t quite here yet.

[@Hatsworthful]

As weird as he may be as an example/citation for this, i definetly agree with scott the woz' take on cloud gaming in regards that its a great idea as an extention. The benefits of cloud gaming are very much clear (though expanding the service, given the infrastructure it needs, is a major challenge), but locking everything to a platform that only relies on online is a deathtrap for making the already bad situation on game ownership and preservation even worse.

[@loldoctor]

Same. Getting Cyberpunk with the Chromecast Ultra and controller for the price of just the game was a steal. I still use the Chromecast and the game was refunded, so it all worked out in the end.

[@UnjustifiedRecs]

The most fascinating thing is that anyone thought this was going to work in the first place

[@Verilee1970]

Fun gaming, emphasis on fun, is an art form. Massive corporations like Google and Amazon aren't really good at art. What they're good at, is buying the art (and artists) after it's made and running it into the ground. Blizzard fans have learned this the hard way. Lessons I've learned over the years: 1) Never pre-order anything. 2) Don't trust reviews. 3) Wait until you see something succeed on KZbin or Twitch before spending your money.

[@whitetiana3022]

we've dodged "gaming as a service" one more time but they'll be back

[@RumblesBettr]

EVERYONE outside of google knew this was a terrible idea

[@johnnyfatsacks5209]

You can't convince a fart sniffer that they stink.

[@bigjoegamer]

No, not "everyone" outside of Google. There's plenty of uninformed folks out there. But it seems like a lot of people knew it was a terrible idea.

[@hemme100]

It was amazing idea gamers Are to hard headed dont cry to run of on space A s

[@darkstriker00]

I've heard some people say that one of the ways to get promoted at Google is to create software. It doesn't have to be a successful long lived piece of software, you just need to create it which could be one of the reasons why so many apps are killed by Google.

[@PerpetualAlfa]

Poor man’s OnLive

[@brandonthetoyandgamecollector]

Stadia felt doomed from the beginning. Interesting idea but no internet is that good to do what it wanted. And I hated the fact that you couldn’t own games, and googles lame response as to why what they were doing in regards to games being removed was a good thing. I for one like my consoles and I love going back to old games.

[@woadblue]

Collecting media is fun. Physical copies while I understand produce waste, are just more gratifying to aquire.

[@brandonthetoyandgamecollector]

@@woadblue exactly. I have nothing against digital games, but I prefer to buy physical whenever possible

[@charliescene786]

Same reason why Playstation has shit understanding of backwards compatibility. No I don't wanna stream red dead revolver on my Playstation 4 eat my ass

[@Helixium08]

See I don't understand the whole "no internet could handle this" argument, because I swear it must only be people who didn't even try Stadia that say this just in some silly spite. Stadia worked flawlessly for me at 4k for the whole 1.5 years I used it(I played every week). I just live in a condo building with a 300mb Rogers (Canada) connection... which is an incredibly common internet connection now in any city really. My friend that also used Stadia had a 150mb connection and it worked just as well for him too. Of course if someone lived in the middle of no where and didn't have access to a decent internet connection, then it wouldn't work well, but clearly Stadia is not meant for those customers then.

[@loldoctor]

Performance wasn't the problem with Stadia. In fact, it performed much better than its competitors, like X-Cloud--which remains complete trash, imo.

[@KaiserAfini]

Considering their competitors offered to host your gaming libraries for free and the main competing service offered a ton of games for far cheaper, I wonder what they thought their competitive edge was. Availability on the go wasn't their forte and neither was their collection of exclusives. So it was a downgrade from what was on the market and hosted by the company known for frivolous tech launched, with pitiful staying power. Who did they think would want this ?

[@beres_davif]

i wanted this and it was the best streaming service. Geforce now's free tier is a joke so if you wanted to play in a decent way you had to pay monthly, xcloud is even worse even though you had a big gamepass library, the quality and availability is very bad. Stadia on the other hand was free to use, it was stable its quality was great you could use it almost anywhere stadia controller is one of my favourite controllers and you coukd buy the games you wanted just like anywhere else. its only problem was the library, the lack of new games

[@Alucard15423]

The real death of Stadia was the way it was monetized. The fact that you needed to pay for a pricy Subscription to then rebuy games at full price to play on Stadia was just a no go for most people.

[@wombat7961]

They would have made so much money in just streaming big budget games. Its called project stream, just let people enjoy all games for one price. I would have bought multiple years worth of subscription, with this promise. Microsoft XBOX was already demonstrating the value in transparency of Gamepass. They needed an in-house studio to help migrate and port. Thats it, from there the porting studio can grow to be Stadia Originals.

[@peter3020]

And this shows the real cause of death: marketing. People don't even know you could just only buy a game and play it for free on the platform as shown by this comment. They should have advertized and explained it a lot better.

[@FightClass3]

The real death was the idiots who don't know how Stadia is monetized. You DON'T need subscription... seriously the amount of brain dead NPCs is staggering.

[@Alucard15423]

@@peter3020 stadia's free tier was launched many months after stadia. By that point they had already garnered quite the bad reputation with most of the gaming community. Just like Microsoft with the original Xbox one announcement, stadia shot themselves in the foot with the original monetization model.

[@peter3020]

@@Alucard15423 the free tier was announced at launch. Stadia didnt launch with the free tier and they should have called the first half year a bèta so they could get away with a lot more.

[@minimalisthealth]

So many of Google verticals are poorly managed. It's amazing they're still among the most valuable companies with so many false starts and abandoned projects across verticals

[@marioprawirosudiro7301]

It's because they're still profitable despite those flops. Another example is Microsoft.

[@TevyaSmolka]

I knew google stadia was doomed to fail from the very beginning.

[@UmVtCg]

Everybody with more than 2 working braincells could have predicted that. Nevertheless, loads of people do not seem to meet that specification.

[@FightClass3]

@@UmVtCg Stadia is the best investment. 3 year of free gaming + free Ubisoft games + cheap controller + Chromecast. Thank god most people only have 5 braincells.

[@PizzaPartify]

How did you know ? Why didn’t you say anything ?

[@TevyaSmolka]

@@UmVtCg yup

[@TevyaSmolka]

@@PizzaPartify I couldn't say anything because frankly I don't work at google.

[@sethmoyer]

I was in the "Google Project Stream" beta and played about 30 hours of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. I already have a good gaming PC so I didn't need it, but I tested it just to see what it was like. I did notice the input lag but it wasn't completely unusable. What DID make it unpleasant to use was the huge amount of visual artifacts.

[@phutureproof]

honestly pal, whether you were invested or not, anyone that took part in stadia beta, feeling special or not, should know it was bound to die due to laws of speed of light and all that jazz, what a shit show

[@Drragnorr]

the monetization model killed It, in my opinion

[@Raznov]

I'm happy I've finished Cyberpunk 2077 in time on Stadia. Stadia was for me, a great way of playing some recent games on phone, laptop or an older pc. Some other cloud options are still there (Luna isn't here yet), but all feel less polished. GeforceNow has a free option, but I'd need to wait for some time to game. When paid it gets better, but still has some hickups now and then. Xcloud is another option, but always requires a controller. Where I prefer to play my FPS via a mouse and keyboard. Stadia made it possible for me, as a young dad, to play a game, the moment that my chldren were in bed. Quick start, quick play, and pause anytime. For me it was a great solution. Play some new games, which would never run on my older systems, where I wanted, whenever I wanted.

[@kiwaminski]

That's exactly the appeal of such a product and I'm astounded by everyone in the comments here not seeing the point of such a novelty. Not everyone has the time, energy or place to commit to a standalone and often very expensive rig to game on. Having a little controller screen thing to play the newest games on without needing to spend a big sum of cash, nor needing much more than a good internet connection has a significant appeal to a lot of people. Thanks for sharing your experience. Was quite a heartwarming read.

[@Drozey710]

I feel bad for all the people who were about to do something big with their lives, then lost everything due to the pandemic.

[@dick8997]

Imagine thinking this would end any other way

[@RickOShay]

Laughably naive. Worse still the underlying motivation for entry into the gaming industry was primarily a financial one. Very few senior decision makers at Google were even slightly interested, let alone passionate about games or the gaming industry. Inexcusably, even at a technological level, they failed to understand or appreciate some of the most fundamental issues like controller input lag and how critically important that was to gamers, particularly in the MP FPS segment especially when amplified by inevitable underlying network lag or jitter. It was destined to fail from day one.

[@DrearierSpider1]

Phil Harrison is 3 for 3: -Present for failed PS3 launch of 2006 -Present for failed XB1 launch of 2013 -Present for failed Stadia launch of 2019

[@MrOnepiecem7]

Phil Harrison needs to retire.

[@cmdraftbrn]

@@MrOnepiecem7 or move to ea and kill that

[@MrOnepiecem7]

@@cmdraftbrn Or Ubisoft

[@ferdys1705]

I always feel soo sad for those people who worked on projects like that, or cancelled games...hundreds of hours just...for nothing.

[@noir2601]

They get paid for that though

[@Kameleonic]

@@noir2601 Money is a part of why we work: pride in our work is more important and Google damaged the pride of those who worked hard to make Stadia 'work'.

[@mravg79]

@@Kameleonic but this is quite common in general in software industry. Even more in gaming - look at number of broken or bugged games in the last 6 years. It is something you have to thick skin. I spend 3 years on a project that was killed 1 year later as the market changed and it become obsolete. On the other hand I really feel for people who work in the project they see it is mismanaged and do not believe in its success (I work in one such project) this is terrible for morale of individual as well as the team. And might take its toll.

[@Kameleonic]

@@mravg79 More like 15 years for me, going back to games like Hellgate London released in a shocking state.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

@@noir2601 Sure they got paid but when you are in a creative industry like gaming, pride in your job and your work is a big part of it for many people

[@sebastiancardoso]

This just seems like a mere summary of a story we already know. I wish the documentary had dug a little deeper into Harrison's demonstrable incompetence, Pichai's lack of support of the gaming vertical and the woes of technologists unacquainted with the games industry thinking they could spin up a development and publishing operation in record time with little to no knowledge of the problem space. That would have actually been interesting.

[@Ruffi0]

Everyone called it from day one

[@GUMMRUCHK]

Google really thought if they just pissed a bunch of money into making a console that they could compete.

[@SweBeach2023]

Worked for Microsoft.

[@GUMMRUCHK]

@@SweBeach2023 Incorrect.

[@shiruki.fan.account]

They had the potential and resources to be a good game streaming service. It's a shame it was so badly executed and managed.

[@amentco8445]

game streaming is simply a stepping stone to taking more ownership away from people. It is not sad. It is good that it failed.

[@xXYannuschXx]

There are no good game streaming services, the idea itself is flawed.

[@cjeelde]

@@amentco8445 exactly! Totally agree!

[@andrewmah2962]

@@xXYannuschXx Exactly. What happens 20, 30 years from now when one's children and grandchildren want to play something that was online exclusive 30 years ago?

[@xXYannuschXx]

@@andrewmah2962 I can still buy used PS1 and PS2 games and run them in an OG console or emulator. You cant do that with a game you streamed and just borrowed.

[@TheGameGrinder]

Google being Google and ruining anything they get involved with. Great video as always.

[@SweBeach2023]

A bit ironic with you commenting on how bad Google is while watching a video on a site owned by Google. Google is: The leading smartphone OS provider. The leading streaming video provider The leading internet search provider The leading ad provider The leading email provider So while Google have failed in a few areas, their overwhelming success in other areas can't be denied.

[@applehazeva2739]

@@SweBeach2023 true true.

[@ftrunks2k]

Found the hardcore apple dude lol.

[@TheGameGrinder]

@@ftrunks2k I use PC and Android.

[@zachsouth314]

I remember getting one for free with my KZbin premium (was called KZbin red when it started) 3 hours of latency and a few crashes later and the Chromecast overheated. Went back in its box never to be touched again.

[@dylantortosa7678]

It's such a sad thing to see. I always believed anybody should be able to play games anytime anywhere (internet, of course) When it worked it actually worked. To see that the people who played on Stadia were actually the people who believed in it the most... absolutely insane from Google. R.I.P Stadia

[@darthcinema4262]

Watching Stadia fail is both hilarious but also quite sad. This is what happens when you don't properly test your product and lie to your consumers.

[@das-das-dasboot7956]

Subscription services don't bode well in the gaming landscape anyway.

[@darthcinema4262]

@@das-das-dasboot7956 The amount of dead MMOs is definitely proof of that.

[@wthwasthat8884]

@@das-das-dasboot7956 To be fair Geforce Now is doing very well as a subscription service. The only real difference between them and Stadia is they didn't bite off more than they could chew. Google making and refining the tech while at the same time opening a development studio killed the project before it could get off the ground. They should have done one or the other, not both at the same time. Especially when the success of one heavily depended on the success of the other. Then they screwed up by making it a marketplace rather than a platform, they were always going to struggle competing with all 3 juggernauts of the industry just on the marketplace alone. Then you have the studio competing with everyone else and the tech competing with Geforce Now. Trying to get a foothold in one of those spaces is difficult. Attempting to do all three at the same time is basically impossible, especially when all three needed to be successful for any individual part to succeed. They should have went the Geforce route and put all their energy into signing up third party games for the service and then when they had a decent library of games, opened their own studio.

[@steel5897]

It uh, actually worked pretty well, how was it not tested? The reason it crashed and burned is almost entirely the business model, everyone expected gaming Netflix (ie: game pass but bigger), but they wanted to charge full price for games you don't own and don't run locally, it made zero sense.

[@steel5897]

Geforce Now makes sense because it runs the games you already own, anyone with a large library has value built in to the service from day 1. Similar story with the Xbox Cloud, if you already pay for game pass might as well as try it out on any device. Stadia was insane, they wanted you to rebuy old games for full price on a cloud service.

[@joro3945]

I got into stadia from the ground floor with a free beta for a year when I bought a brand new chrome book . There was free games.It was laggy on most AAA games and the free games went away as soon as you lost the free membership from beta. So you’d need to pay for the membership or you’d never see the games again.

[@DaggarQuest]

This was great! I love getting more information around projects or teams and what happened to them. Any chance you might do someone on the torchlight series?

[@premier69]

this is actually making me happy, they , a company invested in tech in hopes of exploiting us. they failed, investments still there tho, people still paid, tech advanced. greed curbed... this is all FANTASTIC news!

[@halo2bounceguy]

Lol they lost money if anything. They refunded everyone for everything except the premium service

[@colenado]

Their sponsor is a scam. Just did a test purchase of a very cheap game and of course Steam says the code is invalid.

[@colenado]

Update: Now they are saying they paused the code stating they had a security concern with my info and are asking for a picture of my government ID. This video should be taken down or edited without the sponsor.

[@big_pingu]

The second it was announced is said to myself "this is shit, horeible idea never gonna work and will crumble in a few years" never did i think it would fail this badly, this fast though

[@mashedpotatos3750]

Man I just want games made with love and content again.. I miss the Halo 3 days.

[@rednecktruthspouter3485]

I've been waiting for a great doc on this. As always a great entry. Awesome work ya'll

[@37Kilo2]

Did anyone actually believe that Stadia would last? Google is notorious for killing off their products. I only bought a Stadia kit when it cost $20. I still haven't opened it, and I got a refund for it. Lol. It doesn't help that Internet in the US is laughable.

[@Admiralkirk95]

It was kinda nice to absolutely right about the Stadia. Not only was it not able to stream games effectively, with most people experiencing button lag constantly, but the fact that Google has a terrible track record. They are all about making ideas, forcing them through and abandoning them. And if reports from anonymous and former employees say anything, the company kinda encourages starting projects, but actually making them good or post release fixing, is not important.

[@qazwsx000xswzaq]

I still remember the intial Chrome demo. That was a pretty impressive feat to be honest. If they have taken the route of GeForce Now instead of what Stadia had become eventually, this venture may have a very different outcome.

[@HShango]

I'm so happy Valve came out with the Deck, it makes me wonder why cloud gaming even exists (the platform is so iche, it is not worth the investment when it comes to cloud gaming).

[@setcheck67]

lol ironically the steam deck does do cloud gaming. You can remote control your gaming PC using the steam deck. That's how I play cyberpunk at 60 FPS and RTX, I stream it on my deck from my gaming PC.

[@theunhingedgamer3762]

google can't even run youtube properly so whatever made them think they could be contenders in the gaming market is beyond me lol

[@1Diddums]

The idea of playing a fighting game online with this was absolutely criminal.

[@Will_Parker]

Anybody who saw those horrible ads for it knew it was doomed to failure.

[@linkage432]

Oooo this gonna be juicy

[@ResidenceOfEvil]

Oh I can't wait to enjoy this. Phil Harrison by Jason schreier like the very day Google held a press conference. Bill Harrison basically said nothing was going to happen with stadia because it couldn't fail

[@Boarder4892]

I never did anything having to do with that, but I do remember recalling when it first was introduced in came out somewhere between 2018 and 2020. When I saw this video, when I saw the title for what this video was going to talk about, it reminded me about how I heard about it only a couple of years ago, and then I thought to myself, yeah, that only came out about three or four years ago or so. I didn’t play or have anything to do with that gaming conglomerate, but, near the end of the video when it said that Stadia was a pretty much wind down, and be no more by a date that was in three more days. Even after this video came out, and left me somewhat emotional, for someone that knew of that play platforms existence, but never had anything to do with it, it almost saddens me to know ahead of time after this video is already out, that, in a few more days, it would pretty much be no more, and it’s life would be nonexistent, and when I saw that moment in the video about that play platform winding down, and in my opinion, that might be no more as of the 18th, and I’m watching it on the 15th, it made me feel down for them because it only tried to start up. I handful of years ago, and this video came out with a history about it, even telling us before hand, when it’s done with everything, date wise, which made me feel bad for it. 😕🤷🏻‍♂️

[@DIYStangsandFreedom]

One thing I'd like to mention , Google in 2014 purchased green throttle games (a defunct android game and controller company). Its not really specified what they did with GT , but I assume it paved the way for Stadia. Funny how there where so many companies doing this before Google but have failed. The only one to remain with its streaming platform is Nvidia GeForce now and of course Xbox x cloud service...

[@Mecks089]

Finally the long awaited documentary on Stadia: Incompetence at Full Speed.

[@GTXDash]

Even if Stadia succeeded, it would still not be a great service. I notice lag very easily, such as when a game engine has something like a 3 or 4 frame prerendering delay. Having to worry about stuff like how far the nearest stadia server is to where you live, or how reliable your hometown's internet infrastructure is, will just exacerbate the lag already present in not so polished games, the latency of your display, etc. And no amount of paying for even faster internet will fix that, because increased speed doesn't fix the issues I listed.

[@UmVtCg]

Game steaming depends on how far the client is removed from the datacenter. It's currently not viable for mainstream gaming and it probably never will

[@MegaTheftV]

Using steam link gives me noticeable lag when I stream it from a different room, I wasn't going to pay full price for a game that would lag the same or worse

[@indicatexxxx2656]

HONEY GET THE POPCORN HE DROPPED ANOTHER VIDEO

[@NoJusticeNoPeace]

Title needs an Oxford comma.

[@eidolon232]

Wow, I just realized that I don't even remember what the Stadia logo looked like...

[@Alan157]

Phil Harrison is such a failure

[@michiganjack1337]

The failure of Google Stadia was about as predictable as sticking your finger in a live electrical plug

[@PS4sos21]

About two years is all it took for Google to abandon Stadia. They can never stick to a product except for advertising...

[@MLennholm]

Phil Harrison is a prime example of someone failing upwards. I hope no more companies in the industry make the mistake of hiring him for anything other than mail room clerk.

[@RenegadeBastard]

Rest in Piss, Google Stadia.

[@marcelmeyer6857]

Ahh, reading months of denial from blind r/Stadia fanboys, was a treat tho!

[@NoExplosionsMcgee]

The amount of people that I've come across that were absolutely CONVINCED that Stadia was going to be this revolutionary paradigm shifting technology that would've overtaken the industry as the future of gaming was pretty over the top at the time. I've never seen such delusional bootlicking of that magnitude in my life before. And to have them all be brute forced into coming to the realization they were all wrong in the end was comedy gold. Lmao

[@somethinglikethat2176]

Google were willing to spend years and billions while competitors were spending decades and tens of billions.

[@NgJackal1990]

So it was dead yesterday Jan 18 2023. Everyone knew the moment it was launched but never expected its short life span.

[@Kinoksis]

If Stadia could be used directly from a browser when it launched it would have had a greater adoption rate. I don't understand why they forced people to buy a separate device to access it, that and not doing the Netflix approach of playing a monthly fee to play their entire library.

[@voldrik1364]

My favorite part of the whole stadia journey was when Google announced they'd found the "most gender neutral color" for their controller, and it was pistachio green.

[@Arcademan09]

Who here actually believed this console would have worked? As soon as I saw the pricing I knew they were going to fail

[@vercoda9997]

As soon as I saw it relied on cloud gaming, I knew it was dead. If you can't even reliably watch KZbin in HD quality in a major town with maximum WiFi coverage, like where I am in the UK, what hope to stream games? Zero. I can't even play Fortnite without frustrations kicking in over lag, freezing, etc. And if a modern first world nation can't offer reliable broadband and WiFi connectivity to people, Stadia never had a hope of working. Madness. Don't tell me that crazily well paid people in Google never thought of that.

[@deathsyth8888]

I bought the premiere edition when it went on sale for $22 dollars just to get the Chromecast Ultra so I basically got an extra game controller for free. If Google were to unlock/release the controller as an open source device then it would be great as another Bluetooth controller. Currently, it can only be used as a wired controller when paired with a computer since Stadia services will no longer work.

[@JosMyOpinion]

There is a self-serve tool rolling out to provide bluetooth functionality.

[@manixc9]

You can update the controller to Bluetooth now

[@Ironclad17]

You didn't even mention the actual end product. Terrible input lag.

[@Jinny-Wa]

Or having to buy the game and then pay for the service lol

[@SaigonBrit]

The key point is that people don't trust Google with their games library. Any wrong speak on KZbin and they freeze your Stadia account along with all games and saves.

[@quandrixtwincaster5738]

Today's the day, and my heart is breaking all over again. While I've already happily jumped to GeForce Now Ultimate and Game Pass Ultimate for Xcloud, Stadia still holds a very special place in my heart. Updating my Stadia controllers to enable BT last night just made it that much more real. Stadia was the first cloud service to open my mind to how great cloud gaming could work. The Stadia team has my thanks, to the very end.

[@djknucklez1]

"Googles arduous hiring process made it difficult for lead devs to recruit staff..." Yeah, this is to say the least. Google's hire process is ridiculous.

[@Fire4ward]

Could you do the rise and fall of Halo? Maybe specifically Halo Infinite?

[@utisti4976]

I'm so glad this failed. Streaming shouldn't ever be a thing for games, at least not right now. Way too much greed, way too much input lag.

[@Prawnsacrifice]

Honestly as somone you cloud games on shadow i don't see this complaint thing is my internets speeds are crazy good dunno how it would be on a average speed tbh

[@krisb7990]

Finally!

[@jamesroy791]

Cloud gaming isn't ready and probably never will be due to ISP companys

[@ShabbaRanksMF]

You should rename this the Predictable Tragedy of Google Stadia.