The Google Stadia was a video game console that produced by Google planned on entering a market dominated by the most popular consoles of Xbox, Play Station, and Nintendo, having released during the COVID-19 pandemic it proudly advertised it’s unique qualities, primarily it’s Cloud-based system meant that as long as an individual’s screen was compatible they could easily stream their video games on that screen rather than needing to download it to play, this by itself was promising, unfortunately Google Stadia faced many issues that consequently lead to its shut down. A major issue any video game console that wants to enter the market must face is that there must be a reason for consumers to use your console over the alternatives, however the cloud system was not something most gamers were interested in, rather they cared more for the games that were available, and Google Stadia lacked video games compared to their competitors, very few games were compatible with Stadia, and their competition had already many video game titles which can only be exclusively played on those consoles, making it an extremely uphill battle for Google Stadia despite
being funded by a large company like Google.
Google played a large role in Stadia’s issues, the parent company had little interest in video games aside from the profit aspect of it, with little knowledge of what the gaming public wants aside from statistics and general information, the main people behind the project cared more regarding their potential profits rather than just being passionate regarding the industry they were venturing into, this lead to them failing to impress the gaming audience, as although cloud gaming was impressive, since instead of software updates an individual could functionally play whenever they wanted as long as they had a compatible screen, but unfortunately few saw value In being able to squeeze in some extra minutes of gaming during lunch break when mobile phones could suffice or hand held consoles like
Nintendo’s Switch could also be used anywhere, and unlike Stadia did not require a stable and strong internet connection as Switch games were stored on the console itself and not streamed, while Stadia had potential, it simply couldn’t compete, didn’t innovate enough, not necessarily did it need to invent the wheel, it just needed to build upon it, what innovations it did bring were not very impactful for most gamers.
Stadia was announced to be shutdown, with massive online backlash, as employees and game developers who secured deals with Stadia were not informed before hand, resulting in many displeased customers, even as they were told they will receive refunds for their purchases, customers nonetheless run the risk of losing their progress inside their games due to Stadia’s shutdown, with many developers’ projects up in the air and possible hundreds to thousands of hours of collective work done by teams of people could possibly have gone to waste due to Stadia rejecting rumors of it being shut down only to suddenly shut down without any warning for the people it will affect most prior, especially employees who now face the possibility of unemployment due to the poor management of Stadia, overall it can be a massive stain on Google’s reputation and goes to show how difficult the video game industry can be to enter for large companies that do not have a history or thorough knowledge of it, but Stadia is also a lesson in how to manage a project poorly and how to become hated online, for now it is best to wish all the developers and employees suffering the brunt of the issue to be given the best of luck while many enjoy watching a massive corporation fail.
Felipe Nathaniel L. Uy
Sources for this Article:
- Harrison, P. (2022, September 29). A message about stadia and our long term streaming
strategy. Google. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from
https://blog.google/products/stadia/message-on-stadia-streaming-strategy/ - Stadia. (2022, September 29). Stadia players, find an important update on stadia here.
Twitter. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from
https://twitter.com/GoogleStadia/status/1575524318481879040 - Chalk, A. (2022, July 29). Google denies rumor that stadia is shutting down. pcgamer.
Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.pcgamer.com/google-denies-rumor-
that-stadia-is-shutting-down/ - ??, A. S. (2022, September 29). Refunds are great but the hours of gaming lost, my
@hitman saves, the 400 hours on @cyberpunkgame gone as there still no cross
progression there. so disappointed. won’t be buying any google products again. Twitter.
Retrieved October 23, 2022, from
https://twitter.com/AlexanderWHSmit/status/1575531243856592896
Wow, good article, confusing layout but still very insightful read!