What Went Wrong With Google Stadia?

In 2019, a new challenger approached the well-established heavyweights of gaming hardware, one with enough money, and a crazy enough vision, to change the way we look at games forever. Stadia was set to be the cloud gaming service of the future, promising instant 4K, 60FPS gameplay, entirely streamed through the screen of your choice. And yet, this video game revolution lasted just a few years, before it was officially put down on the 18th of January 2023. So how could anyone manage to fumble such a promising premise?
VO: Ben Potter (@Confused_Dude)
Script: James Jenkins (@Jenx_137)
Video Editor: James Jenkins (@Jenx_137)
#GoogleStadia #Stadia #WhatWentWrong
--------------------------
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[@bobkerolls13]

It was touched on in the video but it really needs to be emphasized how well Google handled the ending of Stadia. All my money was refunded, clear instructions on how to transfer games and saves was given, and no delays or intentionally obtuse paperwork was part of it. That being said - these sorts of things should be considered the bare minimum for any failed company, but so far exactly one company in my four decades of gaming has pulled this off. Google done fucked up, no doubt, but they stuck the dead body bounce.

[@Commanderziff]

That was the only thing about the Stadia saga that shocked me, the fact that they refunded people's money when it inevitably failed.

[@lunamazin4454]

Don’t forget they updated the controllers to work with bluetooth

[@BuzzaB77]

were the games refunded?

[@bobkerolls13]

@@BuzzaB77 yes, and again although this seems nice everyone should do this. And we got our save data etc

[@j.ballsdeep420]

Not all money: Premium users like myself as an early adopter paid 25months, had a library of games unfinished or would revisit like any physical game I own and poof, gone, zero of $250 spent before tax. Sweet I got my paid games back but the premium TOS is I have access anytime, etc so long as I'm a premium user in good standing which I never had a missed payment, late, nothing, and no longer can access them. They broke the deal, not me: Premium users are owed their money back, too, unless they never downloaded and installed any games from premium as a part of that agreement

[@deathsyth8888]

As someone who bought the Premium edition bundle which included the Stadia controller and a Chromecast Ultra for $22 during their firesale, it was great! I didn't use the service but bought it just for the Chromecast itself so I basically got a controller for free. Sure the controller only worked only for Stadia unless you connected it directly to your PC by USB but I didn't mind. Once they released the update to the controller to work as a generic Bluetooth controller then it got even better since they had already refunded my money for the original purchase for the premium edition so I basically got everything for free. So yeah, Stadia was a complete success for me at least. Not so much for Google I guess.

[@frizzyrascal1493]

Hacking the matrix

[@Adam-ho7xv]

wish i knew about this deal when it was going on. that sounds sweet

[@CVerse]

I got one for free when they gave them out to KZbin Premium members. The games I did get to try out worked out great

[@jobheger]

I used Stadia too. It was really great. Now I use the controller (which I eventually got for free) with Moonlight

[@strawberyyicecreamdream216]

Well they could have handled that worse I guess.

[@LoganHunter82]

I think it's easier to list the things that DID go right with Stadia. But it would be a very short list and the length of this video would be only 2 minutes.

[@Tecknee]

•canceled it

[@latesleaves6759]

Why the DID in caps 🧢

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

@@latesleaves6759 right should have been in caps if he wanted to emphasize the difference correctly...

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

So now that we explained what stadia is, here is what it did right. Thank you all for watching and see you next time.

[@lunamazin4454]

What did go right was the hardware, the controller is good for everything but stadia lol. It feels really nice, it’s also just the same quality of an Xbox controller

[@zsciaeount]

I was a day-one adopter of Stadia, and I never used it beyond the first day. For me, the service was technically solid, and would have proven useful. The issue for me was instead how the game library was handled. For a monthly fee, I expected something closer to Game Pass rather than paying for access to a platform-specific marketplace, where games I played 3 years ago were going for full price. Had this been a subscription model like Game Pass, where the games were included, I think Stadia's fate would have been much different.

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

question of demand. i prefered stadia exactly because of that. i dont like games to be taken out after several months. i sometimes take up to a year or longer to finish a specific game because im hoping inbetween games..... it would be so frustrating to loose a game before i finished it. so i prefer the claim it and keep it way of subscription. besides that you didnt have to subscribe at all to play the game you bought. you also didnt have to pay full price. i bought most games for inbetween 20-30 bucks. you just had to wait for a sale and since it qerent that many Games, it happened quite often that the same games went into sale. so if you missed one you actually only had to wait for about 3 months for the next one. Also if you compare it to what it was. a console in the internet. playstation and xbox both force you into their own subscription through the limitation of internet and multiplayer access and they even have the exact same subscription model. so this is not worse than the competition. does it cost more? yes, but on the other side you didnt have to pay 500 bucks on the beginning.

[@alcrian8627]

​@@blackyraypatrick9041 If you download a game before they leave the XGP library, you have it forever basically.

[@lxfenix]

If you want anything in your company to be destroyed, Phil Harrison is your guy!

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

sadly it is so true. Microsoft, ea, stadia.... you know something bad will happen when he is near. and still he is always getting New jobs. i really don't know why. maybe its his features if companies really like to get rid of specific projects. he did a perfect job on that.

[@therealjaystone2344]

@@blackyraypatrick9041 been that way since the ps3 days

[@CVerse]

If you want anything to be cancelled, let Google handle it

[@the-angel-of-light-gardevoir8]

To summarize the situation: A port of Legendary Indie Game Terraira fell through at one point due to Google fucking up Redigits (The Creator) Account…..

[@404_gaming_channel9]

@@CVerse First time an service by Google don`t even has an search bar for the lunched of their own platform until they added it fews days or mouths later ouya did the worst than crash first than google ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- not like Sony Xbox Nintendo forgot the main part of finding an game you want to play world famous search engine did not even made an search bar for First platform by them for gamers

[@mattjames6349]

I've never used it but that was the thing that shocked me the most - Google thinking lets not bother introducing a search bar for the entire first year? I mean, Isn't that the first thing you'd thinnk of from Google?

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

The games fit on two screens, so i do get it.

[@wmf-]

@@shadeblackwolf1508 what does search bar have anything to do with whatever you're spouting?

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

@@wmf- basically i was joking that it did not have enough games to need one

[@reellonely]

It was intentional as a search bar would have showed how few games were available.

[@jonleibow3604]

It's Google. They release something, and if it's not an instant success they forget about it and let it die.

[@vinceely2906]

I can see the pitch now - 'You know how consoles can fail because of being expensive or a lack of games? Let's have both of those, plus technology that even one of the biggest technology companies can't get to work properly. Just to make sure'😆

[@maxnum1sgameclub263]

Gotta say xcloud does a decent job. Not good but decent, i can play forza horizon 5 on my craptop (bad laptop) when im with my parents. Sure graphical glitches pop up but it keep a solid 60 fps and i dont get as many disconnects as before. The service is far far from perfect. But xcloud is surely playable!

[@AbigailHonestly]

Eh, it really just depends on where you are. Some cities are better than others for it. As for rural areas, fuck rural areas. If you don't like the city itself move to a suburb of it. It'll be smaller, can't afford it big whoop, fortunately we still have PS PLUS, XBOX GAME PASS ULTIMATE, NVIDIA GEFORCE NOW, Shadow PC. And, honestly they're really all we need. Google Stadia sucked because it did, and Google never tried to make it not suck, therefore it all never was going to work. As for Switch Cloud Games... Resident Evil 2 works 3 works and Village works can't speak for 7 but it seemed to work in the demo I played. Hitman 3 worked as well and so did Control. But Kingdom Hearts is midling outside of the older games (still worth playing though) and I don't really care about A Plague's Tale, it just didn't work there.

[@maxnum1sgameclub263]

@@AbigailHonestly i 100% agree im a fortunate to live in a country that has high speed almost everywhere. All i am saying is the tech could work if you have the speed for it.

[@AbigailHonestly]

@@maxnum1sgameclub263 Yep, I live in Kansas City, it’s fine usually. It’s not perfect, but it’s typically fine

[@jimhultqvist2539]

@@maxnum1sgameclub263 I agree, it works ok. But I would never select an "OK" streaming service as my primarily way of gaming. Sure, internet speeds are on par to handle it now, but I doubt it will ever be 'stable' enouch to ever be on par with a gaming console or PC experience. There will always be occasions fairly often when your internet just doesn't work proper or their servers doesn't work.

[@rhodrage]

My issue with streaming, apart from the obvious, is that Digital Games never really feel like mine. Streaming games feel so even less. Which also applies to Gamepass for me.

[@arahman56]

At least when digital stores shut down, you can still play the games you downloaded. Good luck doing that with Stadia games lol.

[@skycloud4802]

​@@arahman56 depends. Once I found out got locked out of accessing a digital purchase I made in 2012. When I called support, they said apparently my card declined or bounced the sale back then. Since it was couple years back when I found this out, I looked at my email inbox but I had no proof of purchase receipt (inbox used to autodelete after 500 messages in inbox). I have no way I can actually prove my legit purchase, so had to take their word for it. I learned the hard way. Any digital purchase it's not secure if it's DRM'ed or pin lockable. And if the HDD fails, then you better hope the digital store remains open.

[@RusticRonnie]

@@skycloud4802you can always download a cracked version. Honestly that is the only way you can own it for real

[@braderley]

any game that requires an internet connection to physically play it negates any reason to buy it physically. It’s e waste at this point. Let it go

[@j.ballsdeep420]

Yeah, they aren't. All us premium users paying monthly agreed with Google we could play unless we were not an active user and people like myself never breaching that agreement made Google in breach with us since they ended our access. I suspect they fucked up not realizing they would have to pay licensing in perpetuity per any period the user had it installed, pulled the plug when already bleeding. Seems logical being that it went from agreement to agreement with various gaming studio until radio since 6-9mo besides towing the line and no new news, boop, gone. Fleeced

[@Xyler94]

The thing that hurt Stadia the most was Google's reputation. If they had gone through a cycle and begin upgrading their server hardware, then I'd be less worried about having the whole thing plug pulled. What was nice of Google was how they handled refunds and such, but I wasn't gonna buy into a Google product I didn't know if it was gonna survive...

[@onemorechris]

it’s like google thought Stadia was like Gmail…they didn’t realise they also had to write the emails

[@EaglesAndStandard]

🎯💯

[@NintendoThumb]

I feel like what's often overlooked is that Gamestop, Walmart, Best Buy, etc. don't have an aisle of Stadia games to browse while people are shopping. That kind of thing keeps the console's on people's minds, but I don't think most people even knew the Stadia existed. Then maybe a great ad campaign could help, but I only remember a couple ads when it launched. Or if they would have had some really great new exclusives every couple months that could have got the game sites giving them free publicity. Google already has an app store with 490,000 games, gamers were starved for content, this should have been an easy way to pad out the release schedule. The whole thing just seems really ill conceived with no follow through. Like the goal was to get the system out, and then they just gave up as soon as it launched.

[@DR3ADER1]

That's because Google is run by a bunch of idiots who assumed that you can just jump in on a browser to play their games. Despite their netcode and infrastructure being shit. Chrome, for example, is a memory hog and its servers have always been a mess. Furthermore, NO ONE and I mean NO ONE likes or WANTS Cloud Gaming and companies need to stop pushing crappy server-based shit on their customers. In addition to this, you can't just sell anything Cloud-related in a brick-and-mortar shop, you need to spend extra in having these glorified drinks coasters take up inventory space when that space can be utilised for ACTUAL PHYSICAL GAME DISCS.

[@albatross1688]

For me the issue with streaming is far less about being resistance to change, and far more about wanting at least some semblance of ownership. At least with my Steam account, I can access my games without needing to pay for a subscription on top of it, and also, I don't sense its impending closure anytime soon. Stadia was a hard-sell for me even without it missing most other notes on top of its streaming-only ecosystem.

[@ahubb21]

I remember using Stadia for games my old PC couldn't handle. Something that always bothered me was an error popup about my internet connection being weak. It was really annoying because at the time: 1. I had ethernet with Google Fiber, my internet connection was fantastic with everything outside of Stadia. 2. The popup would stay, there was no way to ignore it or hide it. My other major gripe with Stadia was that there were a lot of games I wanted to play, but weren't available on Stadia. You were really limited to what they had to offer, and sports games made an unfortunate amount of that catalogue. Stadia wasn't all terrible, and I really did appreciate being refunded on all the games/DLCs I purchased through it. I wish Game publishers would learn from that, especially when deciding to cut support to old games. The bare minimum of decency goes a long way.

[@weezercollector]

I took part in the OnLive trial for a week, attempting to play Batman: Arkham City, and it permanently put me off any streaming or on-demand service. 😛 Having a physical machine with the game running on it is always going to be the best option.

[@MontyDotharl]

I like that Stadia tried something different. And I think the tech they created for it could be great. It's just that at the end of the day, cloud gaming can never really work. There's always gonna be things like input lag, connection issues, etc. It's just not feasible unless there is some massive revolution in network connection tech.

[@SpectorEuro4]

That is a fact 90% of people can’t understand, especially the extremely casuals. Delay, server issues, input lag, connection issues are not all solely linked to the speed of your connection. Depending on your location, the request you send to the main server, in this case Bay Area, CA where Google’s located, has to travel a set amount of distance. The farther away you are, the more latency you will get. There’s absolutely no work around that because of simply physics. On top of that, the infrastructure the Internet functions on is technology that’s already more than two decades old. And as a cost cutting measure, tech companies work around that flaw with no intent to upgrade the network. It requires drilling and opening up HUNDREDS OF MILES of roads and concrete to upgrade all the wiring, which means having to close roads for days, even weeks. That is definitely not gonna happen, especially here in a California. Thankfully and hopefully, cloud gaming will remain an ineffective gimmick, and not a norm. Hardware gaming is extremely reliable, easy to develop and price friendly. You at least get to enjoy some kind of ownership of your physical copies and your hardware. Imagine a world where you have no control of when you have access to your games, a world where your internet goes down and you don’t have ANY way of playing games you paid premium price for, and a monthly subscription. People who advocate for cloud gaming should be shunned😂

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

the potential was extremely big. the only survice who didnt just take pc or xbox games and put it into a server but build a whole new service around gaming. from watching videos about games to buying that game and already playing it.... one button. from playing games to streaming it worldwide: one button. from not only watching your favourite Streamer but even playing with him together on that new game and directly moving into his lobby: one button. the potential was amazing but google would have had to go all in, and thats not how Google behaves. they always go the easy way or interrupt a Projekt.... you need to heavily invest into games for gaming to force yourself into the gaming market. epic store shows it really well. they are permanently gifting us games just to convince us to use their shop. we wouldnt even have to buy specific hardware to use epic store and still people dont want to leave steam....

[@nathanbraun2067]

they didn't try something different tho. they literally did everything onlive did 9 years earlier

[@amak1131]

@@SpectorEuro4 Distance isn't the only issue. Sometimes, higher-level providers have really janky routing (picture a package shipping from your town going a town over then back). The copper they use that is decades old is perfectly fine, weird lag tends to be poor routing or hardware being pegged. Cloud gaming "COULD" work with more data centers, but that's a stretch. Maybe when everything goes to fiber (which can be ran in the same conduits as copper) it will be viable.

[@Sarge92]

what was different though? game streaming? you mean like GeForce now was already doing or that PlayStation and zboz already offered in there PlayStation now and similar xbox service? or way before that onlive? letting you pay a subscription for games like xbox live and psn did since the 360 and ps3? the issue was they didn't innovate anything this all existed now they could have committed heavily and focused on being the best of all of those get the AAA games everyone wanted don't be so restrictive and be the everything gaming service but they went too cautious and no one could really understand what was the point of this?

[@NeoTechni]

It's a combination of: -the concept itself doesn't work except in perfect conditions -games don't want to give up physical storage/hardware -we knew Google would shut it down eventually

[@shostako1284]

"perfect conditions" means living 300 hundred feet of the nearest Stadia data center, at max. Stadia always surprised me how achieved to be a commercial product launched to the market.

[@nathanbraun2067]

It's crazy how Phil Harrison jumps from company to company, working on their biggest failures, just to jump to another company

[@ollieambience]

30:52 that was fantastically poetic bravo to whichever one of TJ's talented writers knocked out that line

[@kieransp2010]

Fantastic video guys. Well done to all involved yet again

[@nelsonpun]

They only release bluetooth support for their controller after they shut down…… it was insane they had that ability all along and didnt use it

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

im not sure if they had. it looks like bluetooth and wifi connection to interfere with each other. by opening bluetooth before they could have disturbed the wifi connection ans actually the wifi connection would always be the better performing connection with stadia. maybe a switch would have been cool so that you can always swap inbetween bluetooth and wifi mode.

[@j.ballsdeep420]

**they only did so after being publicly chastised and would face a huge PR issue they created all that e-waste after only 2 years. Was just cutting losses

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

@@j.ballsdeep420 Not really if you ever tried out cloud gaming with Bluetooth compared to wired you see the really big problems with it. Input delay of Bluetooth often ranges inbetween 220-300 ms. People would have become furious about latency at Stadia without understanding that this was not because of Stadias limitations but because of Bluetooths. You would have the combination of delay because of cloud AND because of Bluetooth which is unbearable....

[@StrikeNoir105E]

As someone who's had to move multiple times in several years, having a digital-only Steam library has been a blessing. No need to pack consoles or all of the games I bought, and I don't have to worry about a specific console breaking down or my CDs getting scratched which would prevent me from playing said games anyway. Sure I'll have to replace my PC time and again, but the good thing about PC games is that they are infinitely backwards compatible (even if some games may run like ass on modern OS). The library I've had since 2010 is still with me to this day, and I doubt Steam will be shutting down anytime soon given how large they've become.

[@Harriboiiiii]

Love this series!! Glad it's been given a new addition!!

[@_Devil]

My favorite Stadia Moment was when the lead manager in charge of the entire project suggested on Twitter that KZbinrs and Twitch streamers should pay a licensing fee to play other peoples games on camera.

[@beythastar]

I remember doing the math with the 10.7 Tflops and showing the gpu was effectively a Vega 56 with a 18mhz overclock. Tflops didn't mean everything, even back then, so the 4k promises were already hollow the moment the announcement was made. That being said, Stadia was a great service in two niche markets, one of which I became a part of: 1. People who want to start playing video games, but don't want to buy a console. 2. People who want a console that can function entirely piggybacking off a portable projector (Me). Stadia on a portable projector was one of my favorite side projects I've ever done, and I'll always miss it for that reason

[@quajay187]

If google just for once dispensed with their adhd mentality and had some patience along with competency, of course.... Stadia could have been easily successful.

[@intrepidis1]

Well, you never know, maybe they'll bring it back in 2030, when most of the world might finally have a good enough internet speed.

[@gammaphonic]

Bottom line, no matter how good streaming tech gets, it will never be as responsive or stable as using local hardware wired directly to a display.

[@cr-pol]

You don't believe in negative latency?

[@lucalone]

When Red Dead Redemption 2 was selling for 20 Euros in the secondary market, Stadia still wanted ca. 70 Euros. And they ask themselves what went wrong??!

[@joncarter3761]

Only plus side to the way Stadia suddenly ended was they refunded people for any games/DLC they bought, a friend of mine who was a big Stadia player ended up with almost £600 once his refund came through! Still calling out Google for killing products out of nowhere but at least they refunded people (unlike a lot of other companies).

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

For stadia to work and be a hit, they had to: 1, hold until the the first exclusives were ready. 2, launch on all smart tvs, and all models of chromecast, all smartphones at least from the launch year, and all browsers, and with native apps on all OSes. 3, ensure the graphics slider could go all the way down to support any decent network connection 4, launch with at least one must have feature or game. That play on stadia from a youtube video would have absolutely done the trick for that. 5, a cloud only game is worth less than one i can play offline with poor or no internet, the price should have reflected that.

[@reggiebenes2916]

I loved my Stadia, and had absolutely no lag at all. I worked in a Google data center. Experience was flawless.

[@jjayala]

I am so glad triple jump did a vid on this! I got into stadia way late just a few months before it shut down. But it got me into the cloud and this busy dad is forever grateful for that. I thought for the longest time stadia and ouya were the same thing. And due to ass marketing I thought that forever. Marketing it as an alternative way to game and not stating we are going to change the way we game would have done them wonders imo. Cloud gaming as a whole should be marketed as another way to play. But what do I know.

[@kermitthepog7063]

Cool idea for a series! I like the new graphic.

[@hyper_based]

One piece of silver lining for Ex-Stadia players is we got all of our money back (mostly) and a pretty great controller out of it. The Stadia controller the best controller Ive ever used....

[@Llyander]

They made people buy their games all over again. That's it. You don't need any other reason. That killed it right there.

[@MrBeardsley]

They were doomed the second they assumed everyone in the world had access to 100% reliable and consistent high-speed internet connections, which is something almost no one in the world has access to. They could’ve given the games away for free and still tanked.

[@GurlDreamer50]

My exact reasons for not paying for a subscription. Grabbed me a controller at the GoodWill though. RIP Stadia

[@elin111]

Making all their marketing "4K/60FPS!", something that the vast majority of people don't give a crap about, instead of "Look at the games we have!", something that people would actually care about, killed it all the further. All the pretty pixels in the world don't mean shit without games to play.

[@spongebobfan78]

@@elin111 There are actually a lot of people who care about that. It's just that Google FAILED to deliver that promise.

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

absolutely. some people shifted from playstation to xbox due to features and other things..... what fo they have in common? they also loose access to all of their games through the new console and it didn't matter....or from ps 4 to 3. you cpuldnt play your ps3 games on ps4. it still didnt matter. so no.... that's not it. i mean if you already own these game you abviously already had tech at home beeing able to play these games.

[@kroganshepard6594]

Everything.

[@whenisdinner2137]

Literally. The only thing they didn't do wrong with the tech but even that was dogshit on launch

[@darrinfromvault801]

Well my mom said it all started at birth and she regrets she had the option to stop by the river on the way home from the hospital with me. Oh you mean Stadia?

[@johnpenguinthe3rd13]

As someone who loves to buy/play every single video game related thing out there (I even own the more obscure stuff like Phillips CD-i, Atari Jaguar, Mattel Hyperscan, Tiger Gamecom etc, etc, etc) I couldn't try Stadia. Why? My internet wasn't fast enough to run the damn thing. In order to get Stadia to run games smoothly at 1080p and at 60 FPS, I had to have a MINIMUM of 20 Mbps (of internet speed), but really closer to 30 Mbps. For 4K it was 35 + minimum (closer to 45). My internet speeds are barely at 10 Mbps on a good day and you needed a consistent 10 Mbps MINIMUM to get Stadia to actually run (and at the minimum it would run between 480p to 720p, which is worst than modern consoles). Long story short, I wasn't able to run Stadia, so that shut me out and I was NOT alone in that boat since A LOT of people don't have internet speeds that are that fast. So people like me who love to try out all types of video game related things were shut out, which I imagine was a very large percentage of potential customers they lost before they even got out of the starting gate. That was their # 1 biggest problem (never mind the billion other problems Stadia had which kept shutting out potential customers for various reasons).

[@SpectorEuro4]

The reason why cloud gaming is hopefully never gonna work is because delay, server issues, input lag, connection issues are not all solely linked to the speed of your connection. Depending on your location, the request you send to the main server, in this case Bay Area, CA where Google’s located, has to travel a set amount of distance. The farther away you are, the more latency you will get. There’s absolutely no work around that because of simply physics. On top of that, the infrastructure the Internet functions on is technology that’s already more than two decades old. And as a cost cutting measure, tech companies work around that flaw with no intent to upgrade the network. It requires drilling and opening up HUNDREDS OF MILES of roads and concrete to upgrade all the wiring, which means having to close roads for days, even weeks. That is definitely not gonna happen, especially here in a California. Thankfully and hopefully, cloud gaming will remain an ineffective gimmick, and not a norm. Hardware gaming is extremely reliable, easy to develop and price friendly. You at least get to enjoy some kind of ownership of your physical copies and your hardware. Imagine a world where you have no control of when you have access to your games, a world where your internet goes down and you don’t have ANY way of playing games you paid premium price for, and a monthly subscription. People who advocate for cloud gaming should be shunned😂

[@SlapNuts4Life]

The moment gaming becomes fully cloud based I'd the moment I tap out. I will never pay full retail+ for what's nothing more than a rental at the end of the day. If the games were priced at $10-ish bucks then I may dip my toes in but this stadia type garbage will never get my $$$ Physical systems & media 4 life🤘

[@PanelHopper]

I genuinely love these breakdowns, top tier Triple Jump, in my opinion.

[@EagleLeader1]

I love the "failing upwards" reference lol😅

[@natecw4164]

What kills me is that ALL THEY NEEDED was one single game that leveraged their data centers to a degree where it simply couldn't run on a local pc/console. It wouldn't even have had to be a 10/10, just something novel and jaw dropping as a proof of concept. What'd we get again? Games that would run on a PS3.

[@AshLilburne]

After seeing the worldwide internet speeds, i'd like to point out once again the craziness of what Australia is dealing with. In 2023 we dropped down to 74th in the world - worse than war-torn countries like Kosovo, Palestine and Oman, with Mongolia in 75th and Nepal in 78th. There is also a ranking for highest paid government officials too, with the head of our broadband infrastructure sitting nicely in the number 1 position. We don't even get mentioned in regards to things like Google Stadia, but its only going to get worse.

[@Odnet001]

Awesome series, I can’t believe I’d missed it before

[@BFBeast666]

I've tried running Playstation Remote Play over my 100 mbit WLAN when I had both a PS4 and Vita. Even under optimal circumstances the experience was spotty andnot worth the hassle. When Google announced Stadia, i was a little skeptical. What went wrong with Stadia? The better question would be "what didn't?"

[@greenliongirl07]

I think the exit plan since customers got their money back quickly. Only issue was I think some devs were caught off guard and now had to either rework games in development to work on other platforms or scrap them , and figure out to help players transfer save data to another platform.

[@DR3ADER1]

@@greenliongirl07 Incorrect, most premium users never actually got their money back and even then, they were scammed because their so-called "permanent accounts" became useless overnight.

[@ShowdeQuetzal]

As a non US resident, the moment they anounce that you'll require a steady and good internet connection I knew it will fail

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

i would say. its no guarantees that it will fail but that they will have a long and rough journey.

[@Chris-nw6ws]

A new version of matt McMuscles what happened. Really looking forward to triple jump doing more stuff like this 👍👍👍 Stadia should have just been a subscription model I think

[@LocrianDorian]

What went wrong? Google. Simple as that. They didn't know wtf they are doing with it.

[@fpham8004]

10 advertisements interruptions during the play. I remember, that's why I cancelled cable and started watching stuff online. And here we are... back at the start.

[@handsomegrinch6279]

Multi trillion dollor companies when their new halfbacked product dosnt make 69 quantrilion dollors in the first month 🤯

[@jricedrums]

I never thought the concept would succeed. I never considered buying anything on Stadia. I own 18 consoles plus my PC and I’ll stick with those.

[@dra6o0n]

The thing they absolutely screwed up on, is how to utilize Cloud gaming with it's own benefit that normal gaming can't do. And that is the anti-cheat potential. And the fact that for MMORPGs in general, they are a great way to play MMOs on the go, as usually MMOs are games you play on desktop and sitting in one place for long periods. But nope they want you to buy and play single player games on a cloud server of which many many handhelds, consoles, and gaming PC can handle quite fine. Imagine if EVE Online's Dust 514 was revived as a online shooter remake, and is Cloud service only?

[@chrisrosenkreuz23]

The same mistake as Google+, they haven't learnt a thing, confusing their platform with a walled garden.

[@xxnoxx-xp5bl]

To be fair, nothing Google has created has been all that impressive since developing it's search engine.

[@404_gaming_channel9]

only proplem Stadia has remember what google has and it did not an Search bar ( at lunched )

[@ricahrdb]

Stadia had the "brilliant" "advantage" of combining the disadvantages of buying games (having to pay full price for them) and of streaming games (being completely dependent on the platform being available). Literately it was the worst of both worlds. The marketeers of Stadia must have been put in a mental hospital early on. Or maybe that is where they came from..

[@deathsyth8888]

Two bad things that are worse together!

[@narcopsy]

The ceo said he didn't care about games during the announcement of their game platform, for one thing

[@VOAN]

Imagine being a CEO of Coca-Cola and don't care about soda.

[@dm7410]

I used stadia purely to play Football Manager through all the various lockdowns. For this purpose alone it was superb

[@mjsticart5705]

u killed me with the third hand mutant 😂

[@Nihilisterplayz]

Stadia was doomed to fail at the start knowing how they handle projects they axe them

[@aperturius]

Rerez did a great job covering Stadia but I think your video is just as good, if not better.

[@electric_boogaloo496]

I use PS Remote Play, once in a while. I have used it 200 miles away from where my console was located, latency was OK ish for slower paced games. I tried the Stadia pro free trial head to head against PS4 remote play just for kicks, game in question was Hitman 2. Stadia resolution and video quality was better than what my PS4 in the same house but a different floor could stream, but the feeling of smoothness was lower than the PS4. I have a 1 GBPS up and down fiber optic internet connection.

[@pelago_]

Great video!

[@markh-vy1sl]

For me, it was Comcast data caps. I get charged $10 per 10GB over 1.2TB. It is a bad idea to even get anywhere close to the cap. When I didn't have those caps, I liked it quite a bit.

[@LIP3XGunner]

During 2020/2021 I had a quite outdated pc, and gave this a try, and bought a few games on the platform. Having fiber optics internet, and a controller already , it was quite a fine way to play some of the available games including cyberpunk (which despite the bad state , apparently stadia got one of the better versions). For me it was a great on budget alternative to get new full games that I wouldn’t have the chance to play otherwise. However , after I got a decent PC , I never went back to it again.

[@hippyspacewitch]

Long live the series format!!!

[@davidgill7412]

The good thing is those in the modding community like myself were able to fix most of the PS Classic's flaws.

[@jonathn8758]

Bruh i forgot about this i remember when everyone was talking about it then over time i stopped hearing about it and forgot it existed

[@plkrtn]

The Stadia Controller is an excellent Bluetooth pad though. Definitely is when you figure they sent it me for free.

[@nicholasdean3467]

1:10 what gamer dreams for streaming games? The first thing I always hear from every gamer 144fps minimum. Even phone users don't want 60 fps anymore.

[@Zinkolo]

1. You did not have to pay for the subscription to play the games you bought. 2. Misconceptions like these are why failed as people massively over-reported and exaggerated its issues and willingly chose to misunderstand how it worked because of the stigma cloud gaming had at the time.

[@wyzeguy6]

If the supporting infrastructure would have been around the system, eventually I think it would have taken a hold on the market. Shame it didn't make it. Love the video!

[@mattjames6349]

I have no idea how it works. To have an idea, put millions behind it and not put your your best gaming industry people behind it? It's how Sega went wrong isn't it? Not having everyone pulling in the same direction?

[@arahman56]

Stadia did have the best infrastructure among the Streaming options. They also had the worst business model.

[@StreetComp]

Well done and entertaining video, and the clear graphics for each story headline are great idea. Didn’t pay much attention to Stadia so didn’t realize what a total cluster fuck 😂

[@MikkoTenhunen]

I bet there was also the demand issue, like when some hyped game for exampke Cyber Punk was released i bet their servers coudnt handle the service demand from clients ending in lag or servers crashing.

[@JoshF848]

Never used Stadia but somehow I ended up with a free controller which is actually very good, and a Chromecast that broke after a month. Can't complain.

[@loldoctor]

Same! There was a deal for Cyberpunk 2077 that bundled a controller and Chromecast Ultra with the game. It was a pretty insane deal considering the Chromecast alone was more expensive than the game. I was actually shocked at the quality of the controller, even if the wireless functionality only worked with Stadia (until recently). Now that I have a "smart" TV I don't need the Chromecast anymore, but it was still worth it for the few years that I used it.

[@kennethfunderburk483]

Yay free stuff!

[@plkrtn]

The pad is excellent. Goes very well with a grip, my phone and Xbox Remote Play now it's Bluetooth compatible.

[@mackinblack]

Seeing as how i play on 30fps about 90% of the time (i prefer 4k to 60fps), the performances mode issues dont bother me. Plus im playong on XSX which seems to have a much higher resolution overall.

[@STAN_LOONA]

It’s google. That’s what went wrong.

[@maximillianmarcosebastian880]

It’s been almost one year since this thing bit the dust… From unlikely video game console ‘killer’ to a painful lesson on how to NOT develop a video game product…

[@AltimaNEO]

That's the second Digital Foundry joke I've heard today

[@sergeykish]

I do not own console or even PC with discrete GPU - Stadia could have started with casual gaming like Nintendo did with Wii.

[@Vednier]

Well, just to clarify, Chromecast ultra want "special Stadia Chromecast" it was just more powerful, more expensive, 4K compliant Chromecast which was released alongside with Chromecast second revision. It was openly available for purchase. Maybe they had different firmware, but who knows. Chromecast With google Tv was actually 4th generation of Chromecast (if you even call it Chromecast, since it basically Android TV with "Google TV" variant (custom launcher) of Android TV OS)

[@blazemulryan5250]

This is phenomenal content.

[@SharonLougheed]

They should have worked with other games services such as Steam or Epic to allow gamers to keep their existing library and just pay for the steaming service. Better yet, allot a certain amount of space for "bring your own" DRM-free titles from places like GoG. (Granted, if every user installed their own instance of every game, it'd waste a lot of space. What if... you could prove you had a certain installer locally to gain access to Stadia's? Idk, they could've gotten creative...) My point is, Google was trying to offer something that already existed in addition to something relatively new. There had to have been a way to offer a realtime streaming service without creating yet another games marketplace. Oh wait. I hadn't finished the video yet in case this is mentioned, but it looks like NVIDIA has a service called GeForce Now that sounds a lot like what I'm suggesting. It doesn't sound bad, they even have a free tier. Though tbh I'm not even interested in cloud gaming, let alone any subscription services. loool

[@Harik2001]

Used it quite a bit, manged to get me into pc gaming (ish) with out actually owning a computer at the time. But the full refund for when they shut down was nice

[@mikeyder344]

I got mine for free, controller and Chromecast. It was during the time they were giving it out for free to anyone who had KZbin red at the time. I personally didn't do much with it. I tried playing through sniper 4 and the latency absolutely killed my experience, but my kids loved playing hello neighbor and power rangers on it. And now I can even update my controller and use it like a generic pad which is great since the controller itself is quite nice.

[@pgbrown12084]

I feel like Google fell into the same trap many non-legacy game distributors/ console makers fall into. They wanted to fart out a low-effort product and thought it would disrupt an industry. When the cash flow wasn't instant, they bailed on the project and left the gamers and creators holding the bag.

[@MerelyAFan]

There was a particular moment early during Google's press about all this when I knew Stadia was dead in the water. It was a statement by Phil Harrison where he clarified that their games not only wouldn't be cheaper on the service but that he couldn't understand why people thought they would be. It was a statement so tone deaf and so lacking any self awareness about Stadia's realistic place in the market that it pretty much spelled out there was no way it would amount to anything. Playing on a any device was never going to make up for the internet data required, the latency in controls, and the inability to hold on to purchased titles after the service ended. Charging less was the only real way to make any decent headway in the market in spite of all that, and the unwillingness to do that told the market exactly what real value Stadia had.

[@coolbrotherf127]

One thing they apparently didn't study was what demographics of people this product was going to appeal to. It was apparently for people who lived in generally wealthy nations with high quality networking infrastructure who were into gaming but not too into gaming that they owned a console or gaming PC, but were willing to pay full price for games, a monthly subscription, and order a weird controller that only worked for that specific service to play those games. In an absolute shock to Google's leadership, that demographic of people is extremely small and can't support a business model that requires many millions of dollars in revenue to stay viable. I remember thinking and commenting this almost word for word on video when I heard about Stadia for the first time in 2019. I knew it was doomed from the beginning.

[@vullord666]

It really doesn't even need to be said. The problem was a complete lack of trust. Potential customers didn't expect Google to support Stadia in the long run and trust is needed when the platform exists entirely on their cloud servers. None of what Google did with Stadia addressed he foundational issue of trust and just like everyone expected they shut it down for not being an instant success.

[@ChaseSchleich]

Stadia could have survived every issue, but there's one thing that they couldn't.... paying for games. That business model killed Stadia before it even launched. A cloud gaming service needs to have a Netflix/Game Pass style of business model. If people could have paid $20 a month for a large selection of games, Stadia would probably be thriving right now. If they wanted to also sell games, fine, but the streaming service model should have been their main method of how players access games. Yes, that means some new releases probably won't be available as part of the streaming service day one, but people would have the option to buy those games if they wanted to play them right away rather than waiting for it to get put on the service a year or two after release. Google completely half assed it. They needed to go all out.

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

people always buy a new xbox and playstation and don't get all games for free. gamepass can be a solid way of getting and audience but you put yourself into direct competition with gamepass and playstation + Premium. and with that competitioners they would loose eitherway. i think the Sales Modell was fine. but it was a really big long term ride and they didnt have the patience to endure long enough. look at epicstore. its just a store you dont need to buy hardware to use it or pay any subscription and they still gift us games for about 3 years or longer just to convince people to using it...... you have to really heavily invest into gaming to become part of it...

[@TimothyCollins]

Look at the ad that opens this video. I mean... is it any wonder why Stadia failed? Their ads were both uninformative and terrifying.

[@Harriboiiiii]

Google : I've never created a gaming service before so I'm going to give it little of what I've got!

[@WolfgangGrillitsch]

I'm missing the service a lot - so convenient ... now I am back on my PS4 pro and I'm not enjoying gaming anymore ... Startup time, updates, load times, noise, 5 seconds to load the weapon context menu in destiny, energy consumption, not able to play on phone/hotel ... I'm back in the stone age of gaming ... Really hoping the technology/gaming experience will appear as white label under an other company/brand

[@uncut_cowboy]

This was a lot of work❤

[@ComeJesusChrist]

Pathetic! The idea of Google doing streaming gaming?! For the ridiculous price?! It is absolutely disgusting! Until today, I wasn’t aware of this service, but now I demand a refund for every disappointed user!

[@stuartcastle2814]

Considering two industry veterans (one who has launched a successful platform, and another who is behind several very successful franchises) were behind the launch of Stadia, it's surprising how much Google fucked it up. They launched it in a blaze of publicity, only to show no real interest in developing it.. That said, I think Microsoft and Sony had an advantage over Google when launching a streaming service. They had a large existing library of games and developers already available. Those developers had detailed knowledge of their consoles, which removed one major hurdle to streaming those games. That said, Google should already have had games in development on launch.. They don't appear to have done anything.

[@Freak80MC]

I know it isn't intended, but watching this video is reminding me about how my PC is a few years old (I'm one of those people who will gladly use a piece of tech for 5 years or more if it's still in working order), it's a Windows 7 machine, and how Steam next year will stop supporting Windows 7. After that date, my games, which all still exist on my hard drive (the ones I installed anyway, which is a majority of them), and are still perfectly playable, won't be playable anymore unless 1. Steam still works offline, 2. I buy a newer Windows machine or 3. I pirate the games I already own. It shows that even if I like to believe I own my own games, seeing as they physically exist on my hard drive, I'm still not perfectly in control of them. And even tho I am definitely in need of an upgrade within a year or two, it almost makes me want to move to Gog as I know they don't have any DRM and you can install your games perfectly offline there.

[@AFiveDayStorm]

Stadia worked extremely well for me, the lack of advertising and early games really cemented Stadia's fate unfortunately. I haven't really played any other cloud gaming service since because they don't run as good as Stadia did for me.

[@viviannavicious]

Still blows my mind how they were charging money for the games when they had a subscription service right there.

[@Spindlysneaker]

It was an option. You choose how you pay and play. You didn't need both. You could buy a game without having a subscription too. It baffles me how stupid some people are if you have more options in general. Like it's to complicated for their simple brains to comprehend such things.

[@timothygraham4304]

​@@Spindlysneaker Unless games were cheaper with a subscription, there's no way they can justify double dipping.

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

@@timothygraham4304 xbox and playstation double dip since about 2 decades! no sorry they tripple dip because you have to buy the console too!

[@big_dee33]

@@blackyraypatrick9041 huh? you dont need to pay a sub to buy games in those stores....

[@blackyraypatrick9041]

@@big_dee33 you also dont need a sub to buy games on stadia. not even to play them only for better grafics. But you have to pay this subscription on xbox and playstation if you like to play online. This is especially bad for xbox since it was extremely focusing on multiplayer titles instead of singleplayers....

[@Cherry_Zabix]

Stadia was really weird. i cant remember how (maybe through xbox ultimate?) But i got the stadia controller and chromecast completely free. i didnt even pay shipping. I did the month free of the game service. it was pretty neat i remember playing little nightmares on it. The lag was pretty bad at some points though. Edit: it was actually through youtube premium!

[@coolbrotherf127]

This was touched a bit, but for me, the thing that really sucked was that the games were stuck on the Stadia service. With a service like GeForce Now, I could play pretty much any PC game that I already owned on any supported device with a good Internet connection. With Stadia, I would have had to rebuy games or only play games that I had bought on Stadia on Stadia. They wouldn't be able to play those games on Xbox, PlayStation, or PC, only streaming forever. Nobody wanted to pay full price for a game that they could only play over the internet.