I’m going to try to keep this short (hah, who am I kidding). First of all, this is Google; the company that has a laundry list of products/solutions (either from acquisitions or developed in-house) which end up with a “beta” label that miraculously disappears where at some later point in time, Google decides to shut it down (some of the more notable ones being Picasa, Picasa Web Albums, Panaramio, and ones that are soon to go offline, Google+ and Google URL Shortener). Google+ was of course meant to be their social networking solution platform to Facebook. Then there are other touted initiatives like YouTube Gaming that failed miserably to meet its potential due to the companies brain dead decision making (I was originally very positive on the service to the point where I felt it would be able to effectively compete and take share from Twitch – completely wrong on that one).
Game streaming service platforms aren’t new either (GeForce NOW, OnLive, Gaikai which was acquired by Sony and used as the basis for PlayStation Now) but Stadia takes it a step further in terms of being agnostic to the hardware platform since the goal is to stream even the most graphics/CPU intensive games from Google’s data centers to “any” device (including browsers like Google Chrome). The whole thing sounds great in theory but there’s a bunch of technical issues in between the data center and the potential players point of presence. It’s not just a matter of bandwidth (especially for those with data caps) but also latency (input lag) when it comes to multiplayer titles (for single player or even local co-op, this isn’t that much of an issue). Some of this will eventually be addressed with 5G technology when that is rolled out by providers. In the interim though, the current issues that affect online games now (especially ones with realtime interactivity) will be no different with Stadia.
On the data center side, this isn’t going to come cheap to Google (though economies of scale will drive down the price for them). We’re still talking a lot of both compute and GPU power to run these titles for at least tens of thousands of players, let alone the physical infrastructure requirements on the networking side (fast switching and low latency backplane interconnects). While there are base bandwidth requirements for 60FPS HD and 4K for customers, I don’t want my 4K resolution video compressed the hell out where I see artifacts in fast paced game play (business realities dictates we won’t see uncompressed video being streamed). Business model questions also come to mind with Google’s version of this “games as a service” platform. Some developers will fully embrace this since most all of the parts exist in the data center (no thick game clients with their patching issues on a device which opens them up to modding and hacking). My biggest issue with going head on into the whole “games in the cloud as a service” solution is will all of my game data in the cloud be held hostage/deleted if I don’t continue paying my subscription?
Then on the development side, one size does not fit all. Microsoft found that out with their Universal Windows Platform apps (their Windows 10 solution for being able to develop and deploy a class of applications that could run on a Windows 10 PC, an Xbox One, or a Windows phone device. The issue is that certain applications still need to be designed for each platform (user interface, screen size, control I/O) so that they feel like native apps on each of those specific form factors. The same thing is going to exist for Stadia; games will still need to take those requirements into account and need to have some level of abstraction to offer the best playing experience on specific form factors.
Google is also going against established heavyweights that have been in the gaming space for years now (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft) not to mention the array of PC titles. Google has a track record of performing poorly in the consumer space (customer support with actual live humans is an oxymoron for the company) not to mention the abovementioned history of eventually closing services they fail to properly nurture after the initial starry eyed dreams fail to actually materialize. Google designs their services for more tech-saavy people but are absolutely clueless when it comes to making instructions simple enough for non-tech people to understand. That was one of the original issues with setting up YouTube Gaming on my PS4 for example and even when I did get it setup, it occasionally failed to work (there was eventually a point where it worked without all the weird quirks but it was too late by then for most trying to give it a fair shake).
Actually, you need to read between the lines; this service is really going to target those who are already well connected like Silicon Valley for example (and probably other places with high income/deep pocket demographics) first where the service costs will be chump change. So it will be natural for a slew of developers to rally around this because that’s a demographic they want to easily tap into (and potentially exploit). Developers have been longing for having everything in the cloud because it removes the last bits of easily accessible assets from the players systems making it that more difficult for the creation of emulators/private servers.
Myself, I inherently do not trust Google (the irony isn’t lost on me because I use YouTube and Blogger). The thing is that I don’t use my actual personal information when it comes to using Google based services. I realize there will be a paid component when it comes to Stadia as a service which means it is a non-starter for someone like myself. But this is just me and I realize many others do not share the same concerns with giving Google access to their information and preferences (which is what Google’s algorithms are designed to parse out from using their services).
