Google Stadia now free to anyone with a Gmail address | Hacker News Reader

Google Stadia now free to anyone with a Gmail address

polygon.com

33 pointsingve8 comments

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Google figured out a magic formula:

1. develop a service (e.g., search)

2. provide the service for free to users

3. sell ads (unobtrusively placed within the service) to marketers

4. profit!

Most companies cannot seem to figure out (or afford to get to) step 3. Google's new services generally muck up the formula. E.g., with Stadia, they've broken the magic formula at both step 2 and step 3:

1. develop Stadia

2. provide Stadia to users for a monthly fee and/or per game fee (not free means no network effect)

3. ????

4. Profit!

I don't know what is up with Stadia's marketing. It's like they've made the announcement before they've updated their site to allow people in.. Couldn't find a means of signing up without making a purchase.

Same here. According to the Google announcement I found they're only offering 2 free months of Stadia Pro but you have to sign up for a subscription and cancel after your 2 free months or pay the full $9.99/month.

Anyone who signs up will get two free months of Stadia Pro with instant access to nine games, including GRID, Destiny 2: The Collection, and Thumper. You can purchase even more games on the store, which will remain yours to play even if you cancel your Stadia Pro subscription. If you’re already a paid Stadia Pro subscriber, we won’t charge you for the next two months. After that, Stadia Pro is $9.99 a month, but you can opt out of your subscription at any time.

https://blog.google/products/stadia/try-stadia-free-today

update: just sign up without putting anything in promo code field... seems to let you through.

How did you sign up? It is asking for an invitation code.

NVM it works on browser by not entering a code, does not work when you try that in iOS app

Can't find a way to start - it asks for some codes.. I'm in Sweden, account set to Sweden. What's wrong?

Using anything by Google (except Gmail, it seems) presents such significant platform risk such as aggressive monetization controls, shutting down the platform, accidental DMCA violations, and critically — being unable to exit after — that I'm not sure "free" is good enough.

I'll try someone less likely to exploit the network I help them create.

Even if it's free, I'm not interested in this in any way. I don't want developers to eventually be forced through another "orifice" as Jobs would say.

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