Game On: Stadia has failed to get traction with gamers

By Aditya Deshbandhu The irony of me writing this article at a time having just pre-ordered Google’s new line of Pixel phones is difficult to escape, as I try to balance enthusiasm and disappointment in the stoic fashion that Rudyard Kipling espouses in his poem If. The problem is only further amplified if you consider […]

By Aditya Deshbandhu

The irony of me writing this article at a time having just pre-ordered Google’s new line of Pixel phones is difficult to escape, as I try to balance enthusiasm and disappointment in the stoic fashion that Rudyard Kipling espouses in his poem If.

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The problem is only further amplified if you consider that I had celebrated the launch of Stadia with unfettered enthusiasm and was extremely keen to witness how Google would play its part in the gaming industry. So here I am, three years down the line, writing the obituary of a platform I really wished hadn’t failed. With Google I have been around to witness a lot of shutdowns, trust me. I guess, I should have known better having burnt my fingers with Allo and Duo but then I never seem to learn.

Stadia was unlike anything that preceded it in the gaming industry as it wished to tap into Google’s expertise of streaming and cloud computing to deliver an experience where playing games was supposed to be as easy as Netflix. Google promised that all the processing and rendering would happen on the cloud and a player just needed to play. It was gaming on the move, platform agnostic, just driven by the internet, and we had in our midst an affordable kind of gaming. Stadia was offering a near ideal experience of play that overlooked the need for the latest and greatest hardware provided you could access stable and fast internet.

Debuted as Project Stream in 2018 with Assassins Creed Odyssey, the initial experiences fueled optimism. But at launch everything faltered. Google though promised to have a plan – it would initially offer a catalogue of third-party games which would then incorporate second party games and use the time to develop first party titles from their studios in Los Angeles and Montreal. However, by early 2021 the studios had closed, and the Stadia dream was beginning to collapse.

Others have dedicated reams of writing to what led to the service’s downfall, and I will agree with most of them as Google never got the subscription and game purchase dynamic right. Microsoft on the other hand did (with the game pass) and suddenly there was simply no room for Stadia. I would like to draw your attention to the timeline of the project though – considering it takes nearly 4-5 years to develop a new game from scratch, Stadia as a service got three. How was Google expecting to succeed in an industry where loyalties are formed and reinforced with every generation of hardware?

How was it planning to overthrow Sony or Microsoft (with the “future will not be in a box” claim) if it wasn’t planning on staying for the long haul? This entire journey showcases unclear thought and vision from the leadership in Mountain View.

To aim to disrupt not just a 235-billion-dollar industry but change the very buying practices of gamers worldwide needs a lot of commitment and dedication. Google had the resources, infrastructure, and knowhow to do that, the commitment though is another story.

Not all is lost though, through the pandemic, gaming companies have noticed the benefits of a streaming service as Stadia’s tech was used in WFH scenarios. I am sure Google will offer it to its partners and harness it in some of its other products.

But to give a global gaming service less time than the number of years my new pixel will get software support for is a contradiction I simply can’t wrap my hand around.