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Google Stadia

do you like them video games? what about those there romhacks? well pop on in here and talk about them then! what are you waiting for?!
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Arrietty
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Arrietty »

Honestly, I expected Stadia to not do so well, but surely enough it's a bigger disaster than I thought it would be. The fake confidences from their PR/Marketing folks was a big warning sign. And what little it brings to launch is surprisingly tiny to say the least.

Anyways, I'm kinda glad it flopped. I don't normally get happy over such petty things, but I absolutely would not want a future where we're at the mercy of no way to perserve games. Streaming services is fine as a side thing, but Google? They reallly wanted it to be THE way to play games, so screw that.
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by konaa »

Maybe it's bad, but I've kinda been enjoying the trainwreck. The whole thing from the start seemed a little "arrogant tech company" to me. In a perfect world, I'd love to stream games. I've never had a great PC and I like the idea of a low commitment way to try out whatever the new hit game is. Back when OnLive was a thing, I tried it out and played about 3 hours of Just Cause 2 before forgetting about it forever. IMO that's a great thing that streaming could have going if it were on a netflix model.

Unfortunately google stadia has a bizarre and insane pricing model so that's off the table. Unfortunately latency issues are STILL awful (or so I hear) so that's an issue. And to cap it all off, the video compression means that even if you're getting 4k gameplay, it's going to crush the black tones and occasionally give you some shoddy picture quality.

I hate to be the guy who says "we're just not there yet" but I think that might be the case. In the back of my mind I was thinking "hey maybe google will do it - they're google, they've got the best programmers in the world." but I just don't think the infrastructure exists yet for quality videogame streaming. To add to that, they've had a completely borked messaging campaign to the point where people don't really even know WHAT the stadia is. My girlfriend and I have seen countless ads for the stadia and she asked me, "hey is that thing a console, or an app, or like a service or something?" and realistically I couldn't even answer. My answer was "it's kind of a console but also an app. At the moment, you need a really specific kind of chromecast and you also need the controller I think? but then you also need to sign up for the service but also buy games?"'

For those reasons I've basically just sat back and enjoyed the spectacle of everybody being pissed off and nothing going right. Everybody expected it to come and some people were optimistic anyway. I feel bad for them, but at least they knew it was a possibility (I understand this because I kickstarted the ouya for $100 lmao)

The whole thing seems like just another surface level convenience filled with many many deep impracticalities, which has basically defined the silicon valley ethos for the last 5-10 years. It's a party trick at worst, and a way of drumming up investor enthusiasm at worst. A part of me wonders if this was even ever about actually creating a game service, or if it was just for google to show their shareholders that they're trying to expand their business into new markets.
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Re: Google Stadium but Crackers

Post by Awoo »

Peak Capitalism at its finest. Woo :partygator:
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Ashan »

I think there would have to be a drastic shakeup in terms of how the internet works before game streaming could be realistic. I don't blame Google for the latency and frames dropping and whatnot, I'm assuming they're sending over as much data as efficiently as possible, but there's just too many factors that can cause hiccups. Solving latency in games locally is already a difficult task, good luck trying to reduce it over giant distances of cables that are simultaneously pumping a ton of other data in every which direction at the same time.

So what I DO blame Google for is thinking this is something that could even work in the first place.

Stadia's death will be in Google's realization that it appeals to no one.
My theory is that the people using it now fall into one or both of 2 categories:
1. Tech nerds that like to try out new things because they're new
2. People who used to play video games and since grew out of them and were sold on the idea that it's because of the supposed "inconvenience" of buying a new console every 7 years, when really it's just that they grew out of video games.

Once the novelty of it being new and bold has worn off, who is gonna be the person shelling out $60 for every new release on Stadia?
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by konaa »

Ashan wrote: 4 years ago
2. People who used to play video games and since grew out of them and were sold on the idea that it's because of the supposed "inconvenience" of buying a new console every 7 years, when really it's just that they grew out of video games.
This idea was floating in my brain but I couldn't quite figure out how to put it into words. I think you hit the nail on the head here. I don't like buying consoles, and I don't necessarily buy the new consoles when they came out (I got a ps4 like last year) but google wants to solve a hardware problem with software. I get it, I don't like buying new consoles. Maybe some people are excited for the generational leap, but I'm not. They're expensive and often have issues at launch. That said, hey, you gotta upgrade hardware sometimes. There's a limit to how much a piece of software can be optimized!
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Re: Google Stadia Advertisia

Post by Awoo »

Every ad before raocow's videos the past day or two have been for Stadia. The only reason I watch them is because I want to give raocow the ad money.

Their ad campaign is so bad.
Oh, no, my console takes up too much space on my otherwise empty TV desk!
There's no smell or noise? Because my consoles in the past have been oh so smelly/noisy.

Is there seriously a market for this thing?
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Arrietty »

Stadia ads came up in the TGA a lot last night. It was basically like they saw Tim and Eric and tried to make an ad based off that. I can't even understand what the heck was happening lol
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Re: Google Stadib

Post by Awoo »

Arrietty wrote: 4 years ago Stadia ads came up in the TGA a lot last night. It was basically like they saw Tim and Eric and tried to make an ad based off that. I can't even understand what the heck was happening lol
Felt like bootleg Eric Andre, heck, the guy even kinda looked like Eric Andre :ehh:
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Ashan »

If we're thinking of the same guy, he looks like Reggie Watts to me
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Ashan »

Hello, it is me 1 minute later, post-Google search

He looks like Reggie Watts because he is Reggie Watts
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Re: Google Stadia Advertisia

Post by konaa »

Awoo wrote: 4 years ago There's no smell or noise? Because my consoles in the past have been oh so smelly/noisy.

Is there seriously a market for this thing?
If somebody has a smelly console then it kinda sounds like that's their fault. Maybe a hygiene thing? Will google stadia also remind them to clean their room from time to time?
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Re: Google Stadia Advertisia

Post by Kilgamayan »

Awoo wrote: 4 years ago There's no smell or noise?
Melee deconfirmed for Stadia
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Re: Google Stadia Advertion

Post by Awoo »

Kilgamayan wrote: 4 years ago
Awoo wrote: 4 years ago There's no smell or noise?
Melee deconfirmed for Stadia
No, that'd be the Stadia conventions nyoro~n
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Re: Google Stadia Advertisia

Post by Arrietty »

konaa wrote: 4 years ago
Awoo wrote: 4 years ago There's no smell or noise? Because my consoles in the past have been oh so smelly/noisy.

Is there seriously a market for this thing?
If somebody has a smelly console then it kinda sounds like that's their fault. Maybe a hygiene thing? Will google stadia also remind them to clean their room from time to time?
*WiiSports Menu Font*

"Why not take a break?
You can keep your console from
smelling by cleaning your room."
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Ashan »

I have a friend who works at Google and he had a few 3-month Stadia trials he was trying to get rid of and he offered me one so I figured I'd give it a shot. You get a handful of free games while on the Pro subscription so I tried 4 of them out. I spent maybe 2 hours this morning playing around and uh... well I guess I can't say much more than what's already said, though I CAN give an explanation of what the experience is like on a kinda shitty internet connection: not great! Here's some rambley probably nonsense thoughts I'm gonna just spew out while they're still fresh.

My ISP says my internet speed is 25down/2up but I don't know how accurate that is, and in terms of straight consistency it's pretty all over. I can sometimes keep up with a 1080p Twitch stream, though not usually at 60fps. Most of the time I was trying Stadia I was the only person in my house, so I should have had all the internet to myself.

For starters, the technology itself, when it's working, is pretty impressive. The latency is small enough to be usable, and I've played on TVs with worse latency. I'm not sure what was going on in that famous clip of the guy pressing the jump button in Destiny and it taking like a whole second to show on his stream; mine was never that bad. The issues I experienced were random quality drops, and frame drops which are even worse. It was working fine most of the time, but most just isn't good enough for a decent experience. It was pretty typical to have a frame drop or two within a 10 second span of gameplay. And I also saw a lot of that horrible gross artifacting you get with video streams coming over the internet.

Something that was cool was being able to open a website in your browser and boot into a full game in a few seconds with no setup required. It detected my Xbox One controller I had plugged into my PC without any issues, that's all nice. Still doesn't make up for the fact that the internet as a whole is just not a good reliable technology for this.

The first game I tried was Samurai Showdown because it seemed like the easiest thing to quickly boot into and try out the experience. I don't really know how to play fighting games, especially this one which I've never played before so I button mashed and probably didn't play any worse because of the latency. The frame drops were more of an issue though. It would be a weird day to see people playing competitive matches on Stadia though.

After that I tried Thumper because it was another one that looked quick to boot into. It was better than I expected since like I said, latency isn't really that bad and you can adjust to the timing. But I actually was really enjoying playing Thumper cause I knew nothing about this game, but it just made me want to be playing on something that wasn't Stadia.

I then did the first 30 or so minutes in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Again, it was playable, but in the time I played it barely got to any real gameplay, most of it was basically the almost QTE level kind of gameplay where you're climbing a mountain and rocks are falling out from underneath you. It's also the very intro of the game so there wasn't any kind of demanding inputs required. I only died a couple times but more cause I didn't know what the game expected of me and not cause of Stadia. As I was further into the play session frame drops were getting worse and worse, not sure why.

Finally I played through the tutorial of Destiny 2. I'm pretty garbage at FPS games, but oh man this is when it was starting to get really hard to play, and again it was mostly because of frame drops and stutters. I'm sure the bit of latency wasn't helping though. I think this really showed that Stadia is not a great way to play anything other than the least demanding gameplay, cause once you have to do somewhat precise inputs, it becomes a real chore.

I really couldn't imagine paying full price for a game on this platform ($80 + tax in Canada). It could maybe be a decent secondary option if games purchased there could also be played locally on a PC or console, and there was cross-syncing for everything. Then in that case if you're out and about and have access to a good internet connection, controller, and something that can stream Stadia, you could get something of a gaming fix. But since that's not the case, I still am not convinced there exists much of a userbase for this thing.
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Re: Google Sonic

Post by Awoo »

Is this even still a thing? I haven't seen an ad for it in a while, so I can only guess it's flopped harder than the N-Gage.

At least one could hope...
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Ashan »

I mean, there was no way it was gonna be cancelled this early on, but whatever hype train there was definitely died down. It had something of a news cycle at launch (mostly a negative one, especially in the communities they need to have the support of in order to get off the ground and thrive) but I think it was completely propelled by the fact that it's Google trying to get into the gaming space, as well as the novelty of streaming a game from a server. But once that's old news, once the party trick of "hey check it out I can play a full video game in a browser" has been shown off a few times, it needs to actually be a good enough service for people to use it. And it's just not. There's practically zero incentive to be buying games full price there so no one is going to do it except for those die-hard tech guys that have a decent amount of disposable income and want to be on the bleeding edge of technology. This hypothetical community of people who want to play video games but don't want to buy a console are not going to be shelling out $130 for experimental technology.

The Stadia subreddit is still filled with crazy fanboys trying to justify their purchase. And I mean, if someone legitimately enjoys it, power to them. But I do get the vibe of what I saw for almost the entirety of Windows Phone's lifecycle in that community. A whole bunch of like minded people telling each other what they want to hear and progressively getting radicalized with the idea that they didn't make a bad bet.

But I can't say I'm not looking forward to how this whole story progresses. It's going to be an interesting footnote in history no matter what happens.
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Re: Google Stadia existia

Post by Awoo »

So, 3 months later, is this still even a thing?
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Ashan »

Actually just yesterday a post from /r/stadia popped up in my reddit feed and it gave me an idea of how things are going.

They're still upvoting posts thanking Stadia for enabling them to play a video game, usually while giving comically exaggerated praise to it.
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I think they're still trying to convince themselves Gylt is a killer app even though no one was talking about it at launch and they're especially not talking about it now that it's almost half a year old. But it's all they have to play, so I guess we gotta pretend mediocre indie titles are worth buying into the worst DRM nightmare ever presented to consumers
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Ashan »

I should also add, I think Google is giving out a couple months free to everyone right now? So you can try it out right now on a PC through Chrome right now. Just make sure to cancel the subscription, I think you can do it right after you sign up and it doesn't cut your trial short
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Ashan »

This subreddit is so funny
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by thatguyif »

This has weird cargo cult vibes to it
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Ashan »

Got a package in the mail. Couldn't remember what it was
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They were giving away these things for free to anyone with a YouTube Music/Premium subscription and I couldn't say no to a free Chromecast Ultra. And I suppose it's a USB controller too, so... yeah. I'm not sure what to make of them giving these away for free, you could either assume it's still their early days money dumping to try and get people on the service, or alternatively it could mean they're already incredibly disappointed in how many people have stuck around and this is just them offloading all the stock to pull out as fast as possible. We're only about 1 year since launch, so this does seem really early for the service being killed like many have predicted, but who knows.

I was thinking I would use this as an opportunity to try out Stadia for real and commit to playing through a full game but then I scanned around the box and you don't get a free 30 day trial or anything as far as I can tell. If that's true it's pretty dumb that they're giving me $140CAD of hardware but no reason to actually use it for its intended purpose.

Oh well!
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Kleetus »

At the very least is it a nice controller?
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Re: Google Stadia

Post by Ashan »

I tried it out for a few minutes. First booted into Dark Souls to try a 3D game and it was working fine enough. Then I wanted to test it with something I'd be sensitive to if it was a bad controller so I figured I'd try SMW but I couldn't get snes9x to detect the controller for some reason. Eventually I gave up and ran through a stage in Mega Man 9 since I have the Legacy Collections installed already. Seemed to be okay enough.

It's kinda similar to an Xbox One controller, maybe a little heavier but the One controller I have doesn't have batteries so that might make it feel a little lighter than normal. Also the D-pad is placed Sony style where the left joystick is on the bottom and the D-pad is above, closer to your thumb, though again the feel is pretty similar to the Xbox One in that it's clicky rather than mushy. And it's an actual cross unlike Sony's weird 4 separated buttons poking out which I don't like.

So overall, yeah it seems decent. I'll play through a game with it at some point and maybe get a better feel for what it's like with extended use. No major complaints so far though
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