Harsh… but funny 
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Well that didn’t take long.
What a shame for the devs who had barely started work there.
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basically, Google pulled a reverse SEGA. They’re gonna keep the service but get rid of the first party studios. 
The only thing that could have helped them is the availability of exclusive games from first-party studios and unfortunately they killed all of their studios. And this is the biggest problem because most players, if they are not all of them, do not see the benefit of playing third-party games on stadia while they have physical equipment capable of doing so. 
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Like, what did Google expect? That Typhoon Studios and co would’ve produced a new God of War within 2 years? This takes time and efforts. Lots of it.
Guess they didn’t see the growth they expected so it wasn’t sustainable to have 150 developers work on exclusive titles. Wonder how many people are actively using Stadia these days. Cyberpunk 2077 was a big Stadia advertisement as it outperformed last-gen consoles.
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I don’t understand what Google expected either, it takes time for games to be developed and 2 years is nothing. As you say, I don’t think Google is seeing anywhere near the level of growth to justify continue investment into first party and probably gulped at the money being thrown around for acquisitions.
The question is whether Google can expect Stadia to grow without a first party apparatus to help drive it and the answer to that is highly doubtful when you have competitors who have exactly that.
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Stadia clearly needs to let go of the model where you gotta fucking buy a copy just on Stadia platform to play the game. This is one of the biggest problems of DRM, see how all these games people purchased on Stadia have a very big chance of just vanishing into thin air if Google in the future decides to just axe Stadia in itself for good. This is a problem for Xbox and Playstation as well, but those two platforms dying is far less of a reality than Stadia dying is, Google’s history with the way they manage new ventures shows it. Sure, they can provide keys and redeem codes for getting back those games on other platforms but that’s such a logistical nightmare they don’t wanna invite. Gamepass/Luna is the model to go for Streaming if that’s the way you’re exclusively consuming games.
Xbox and other platforms like Geforce NOW have one thing Luna or Stadia don’t, and that’s just being able to play the game on local hardware if the streaming isn’t working, if internet shat itself that day or the servers are fucked for some reason. This is why Gamepass/Xcloud is the model that fits streaming perfectly, because it doesn’t demand you separately buy games just for streaming them. Streaming is an addition to the gaming experience, not a replacement of it like Stadia was touting itself to be. That’s where they messed up.
The only thing they have to do now to correct the course imo is to simply partner up with other distribution platforms like Steam or Playstation or Switch or whatever and just make it so that buying a game on there gives you Stadia access as well, much like how Geforce Now is doing with Steam.
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I was thinking how good stadia tech would be on the Switch lol
To be honest Google has plenty of “fuck you” money and probably could of money hatted timed third party big hits until their own first party games could start a cadence.
But Google gonna Google. Too bad too, I was impressed with the Stadia tech on the free trial for Pro that I got
Google has the best game streaming tech in the business in my opinion.
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For now.
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They might make an enticing target for Embracer Group but ultimately whether on Azure, AWS or Google you will be paying someone for their services.
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Google could just buy devs and pubishing houses, instead of create teams.
They still want in on the streaming space.
100%
So weird and very Google. Probably not a super popular take but I was genuinely interested to see what SGE might do and whether they’d bring anything to market that could actually realize some of the cloud benefits they had talked about. And even beyond that, I just thought it was good to have more funding for games whose purpose is to be great and show off a platform, not just chase a fad or do whatever it takes to keep a studio afloat another year.
The actual streaming tech is very good and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become a core part of some other punisher’s offering… Ubisoft and Nintendo spring to mind.
Ah well. Sucks for the devs, I hope they all land on their feet. Maybe MS will scoop some up.
Jeff Grubb is lethal. 
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Never EVER buy anything from Google on the consumer side that needs continued support. If it is not an instant runaway success changing the world Google will kill it.
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I saw that earlier today their entire accounts were locked out (prompting this tweet). I have no idea what caused the lockout but Terraria is a huge game. Google is simply one of the worst-run of the big tech companies out there; so little sensible logic and the fact that they kill services/products so quickly without giving them chance to grow or without understanding the markets they enter in the first place, just highlights a complete lack of care for their users.
Not to sound all ‘hail-corporate’ but compared to Microsoft, who also make stupid decisions and pull out of markets prematurely from time to time, it’s a night and day difference. I will never forget a friend’s response, who’s differently abled, when the Adaptive Controller came out; it changed her life, literally, as she was able to play games she hadn’t in years. I would argue that project will never recoup its R&D costs, but the fact that Phil and MS were willing to do something altruistic like that, simply because it’s the right thing to do is something I don’t often attribute to Big Tech, especially not Google these days.
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