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Comment by adamzapasnik | Hacker News Reader

Very surprised of general negative sentiment towards Stadia. Why is it like this? Because it's Google, the evil company?

Seriously, if any startup launched it in its current state, people would be cheering and blaming it on a new tech/new challenges. But cause it's a very big corporation with top talent it means that they have to release top quality product every time? What the hell...

I'm very excited about the project, although not really interested in it at the moment. I don't think its target audience is hardcore gamers, so why all of you are so over dramatic? Possibly, feeling happy that "real" gaming isn't going anywhere anytime soon?

Obviously, there are problems and challenges, but I'm pretty sure that sooner or later it will get better. That's what the MVP is for, isn't it?

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>if any startup launched it in its current state, people would be cheering and blaming it on a new tech/new challenges

I'd direct you to a review of Onlive, a previous startup doing exactly what you say[1]. The take away is exactly what I've heard about Stadia:

"OnLive's streaming game system is a really cool concept, and the ability to access a library of games with no downloads, discs or storage worries is definitely cause for excitement. Some gamers will be put off by the occasional lag, though, and the list of currently available games isn't hugely tempting.

Still, OnLive is an exciting proposition, and it costs nothing to try it out. It probably won't suit you if you're pernickety about lag and image quality, but we'd recommend checking it out nevertheless."

I personally think that, after seven years, Google seems to be in the same place as a much smaller company, speaks to why it feels disappointing to me.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/reviews/onlive-review/

I hadn't heard of OnLive until there were comparisons to Stadia. On the other hand, Google is able to do some great first party advertising on YouTube.

OnLive was kind of a big deal when it was announced. A lot of poeple used it and tried it. They "gave" some games for you to play for free and test it out. Also, Sony did a few things similar on Playstation but was never a huge success because of the technical implications.

I remember playing an OnLive demo of a (then recent) Mass Effect title. I was picky about both image quality and lag, and I was not in a top-tier city. I was very impressed! Unfortunately, the problems with the business model remained.

I actually used OnLive a bit back in the day. I mostly played Unreal Tournament. I miss it sometimes. It felt novel.

This is honestly out right depressing to think there are people who extract joy out of these kinds of messages. I know this whole thing is meant to be a joke, but come on, people need to get over themselves.

You can live life, have good moments, enjoy and have a good laugh about things without it coming at someone else's expense.

People have spent a good portion of their working life to put this product out there. It has flaws and it's not perfect on day one, sure. It might even get cancelled a year from now. None of that matters nor does it mean we need to make a mockery of their work. So much negativity around us these days. It doesn't have to be this way.

> It might even get cancelled a year from now. None of that matters

To the customers who spent money on Stadia and games on Stadia only to have it shut down and leave their games inaccessible it matters. If this were a free service there wouldn't be so much negative chatter about it. This is mostly people warning others to consider purchasing Stadia may be equivalent to a high-priced one year subscription.

No one is forcing any of those people to buy it. It is not the only way to play video games. Don't like it? Move on with your life.

So, you're cool with wasted resources?

I think people are critical of google in general, not that that is a bad thing. Although for Stadia's case, I think Gamers Nexus shows why people are negative towards it off the bat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6dyrtnLU_w

When Stadia announced I think the general consensus was cautiously optimistic. They promised a lot, 4k game streaming on any device - seemingly anywhere in the world. A lot of people familiar with the challenges were especially skeptical. But the marketing kept going with its promises. Now it comes out and many of these fears are validated - it only really works in tightly controlled situations with very specific types of games. The sticker price and ridiculous marketing remains.

The current negative sentiment as seen on HN is about Google dropping products. But I think the negative sentiment outside of our bubble is due to Google blundering into this with dishonest marketing. Google tried to force this into a viral success on day 1 and that's not going to happen. This strategy also eroded trust that it will be fixed to the point it was originally promised either.

Finally, it didn't help that they didn't vertically integrate the games themselves and are charging full price for the game on top of the service. Microsoft is a good example of how it may have been done, by investing heavily in studios and exclusives to get the people going. To be fair though, Microsoft has decades of experience with this with xbox alone.

EDIT:

Because of a sibling comment I just want to mention how I think this may end. I think Google is now between a rock and a hard place, they either dump immense resources to get it right, or they dump the product and face even worse consumer reputation decline (this time in an entirely new market segment!). I suppose there may be a third alternative of putting it on life support. Either way there is no clear win here, I do empathize with the team which probably has a lot of passionate members who just want to do a good job. It'll be a good PM lesson to watch how it shakes out.

Thanks for the response. The situation became much clearer to me now.

> Google tried to force this into a viral success on day 1 and that's not going to happen.

What do you mean by this? What is the difference between a big marketing campaign from a large company and a campaign "forced to go viral on day 1"?

I've not seen any of the advertising for Stadia so I'm probably out of the loop here.

> I don't think its target audience is hardcore gamers

They are marketing to hardcore gamers

> Because it's Google, the evil company?

Yes - they have closed down so many services that people depended on.

> with top talent

I don't see much evidence of this in their service provisions.

Sorry, but I don't see it as a good enough reason for this very negative response.

I do agree that it speaks volumes how Google's PR team isn't doing a good job recently, though.

You cant rely on Google for anything long term.

Isn't it subscription based service anyway? Probably by the time they canceled the project, there would be a competition that you can move to.

Except you have to pay for the games too, not just the subscription. Probably when they shut it down you got your money back, maybe not. Time will tell.

but then you have wasted $60 for each game that you have "bought" for Stadia

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