What was Google Stadia, why it was awesome but why it failed
If you follow Google as if it is a brand or a company & not just your hack to live your life, then you would have heard about Stadia.
Google Stadia was what you call that unicorn moonshot which sounded too good to be true. Guess what it was.
Unlimited gaming without an actual processing unit, cloud gaming, playing high res games with the help of a console and nothing else, playing games directly through YouTube. There were too many things which sounded as if the future was here.
Obviously everybody questioned the fact that wouldn’t that need a great internet connection. Apparently cloud gaming was that unicorn concept which would not require great quality, high bandwidth internet.
IT FAILED. Apple had apple maps, Microsoft had too many fails to count and then there was Stadia by Google.
Google had to enter list of big tech companies which created at least one monstrosity which fell so deep into the hate pool from the internet, that there was no saving it.
But before we go down the rabbit hole of why it all went crashing down, do check out what Google tried to promise. It was a great concept but it was too ahead of its time just like Google lens.
So, why Google Stadia failed:
- Starting tech first
How can a product that Google said it had “thousands” of people working on fail? It’s a great case study:
1. Starting tech first
Stadia was all about hopping aboard the cloud gaming future. Google launched with the hopes of bringing users without expensive gaming hardware “streamed” gaming. But it misdiagnosed users. Google thought they have fast internet & lack gaming hardware.
But gamers have gaming hardware! PCs or consoles: Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo Switch. And SLOW internet: the average internet in the US is 26 mbps, not fast enough for 4K stadia streaming. So Stadia appealed to only a very small niche.
2. Lacking exclusives
Consoles succeed because of their exclusive games. Gamers pay hundreds of dollars for titles like: Halo, God of War, and Legend of Zelda. Stadia titles didn’t compete: GYLT, Hello Engineer, and Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle.
Cloud gaming alternatives from Microsoft and Sony had better games. For a software company, this was quite an error on Google’s part. They took a hardware strategy in a software market.
3. Making it hard to port
At 3% market share, few devs build for linux. Computer games are built only to run on Windows. Because Stadia chose the linux kernel, devs had to port. Porting was too hard to help Stadia build a large enough catalog of games.
Why did Google choose Linux? Microsoft server licenses are expensive. Former GeForce Now PM Matt Enthoven wrote that it accounts for a “significant portion of the cost to run a cloud gaming service.” But this cost decision turned out to be the wrong one.
4. Confusing business model
Stadia initially released with an emphasis on its $130 founders edition. This included the Stadia controller. Then users paid a $10 subscription per month. But the exclusives were sparce, and no one just buys a controller. So no one subscribed.
Later, Google made the subscription less of a focus and allowed users to buy individual games. It gave some users access to titles they otherwise didn’t have the hardware for. But not that many. On the other hand, Microsoft and Nvidia offered bring your own games.
5. Microsoft’s counter-moves
In 2019, Microsoft’s head of gaming and Xbox, said: “When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a ton of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward.” And MS went to battle deliberately.
In addition to investing in Xbox Cloud Gaming with bring your own games, MS also went on a studio buying spree. Some of the most interesting reporting on Stadia this week was that, the Google Stadia GM said this spree led to the closure of Stadia’s independent studios.
Given the important of exclusives, closure of its studios nailed the coffin for Stadia. That decision last year effectively precipitated the decision this week to cease Stadia operations for good.
