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Comment by maxehmookau | Hacker News Reader

> Just earlier this month, Google rang the death notice on Stadia

I keep seeing this, and it isn't true. (Not yet at least.)

Google shut down its game studios (which never released anything anyway), but is continuing to support 3rd party developers releasing their games on Stadia.

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The fact that they have up on their first party studio means the clock has been started on a shutdown. If Google sends the signal that their first party Stadia studio is a lost cause, what signal does that send to the third party developers?

Google didn't have the patience for their own studio to bear fruit, so it doesn't bode well for them to have patience with the platform, much less invest in it.

> [...] what signal does that send to the third party developers

This but also: what signal does this send to the consumer to whom Google abandoning services is already a running joke. Would anyone knowing about this now buy a game on Stadia that they can only play on that very shaky platform?

The shutdown of the first party studio sends a signal, but the freezing of the Google account for the Terraria lead developer to the point where the Stadia port of Terraria was cancelled sends an even stronger signal to indie developers who were considering Stadia - Google does not support you, you are a digital sharecropper, and you'll take what you're given and like it or buzz off.

A minor correction: the stadia port of terraria is still alive and kicking.

(Googler, opinions are my own)

Note: Terraria for stadia is uncanceled[0]. Sadly, Terraria devs nor Google has said anything about what happened (in any kind of detail), but accounts were unlocked and game is back on.

[0] https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/terraria-state...

I think that lack of explanation is bigger than the Stadia executives think: when you’re asking people to take a gamble on a completely proprietary platform both prospective developers and buyers are going to be worried about the prospect of things randomly going away.

This is especially true given Google’s poor reputation for support even with paid products. Right now would be a key moment for a post mortem response detailing what they’ve done to ensure that developers don’t have to worry about being locked out and customers don’t have to worry about losing access to their purchases. This is an unproven service and anyone who is at all worried has multiple safer options available so trust is especially critical.

The account issues have apparently been resolved, and Terraria port to Stadia has been uncanceled:

https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/terraria-state...

Disclaimer: I work at Google, but don’t work anywhere near this.

Never mind signals, the last hn thread on Stadia said third party developers were basically left on their own with a paltry $10,000 budget (as opposed to Microsoft’s investing millions).

But they also launched it with a big bang like any other big console maker. Therefore shutting down first party studios is a big red flag that they intend on not supporting the device going forward. Imagine what the message would be if Microsoft or Sony shut down their internal/owned game development studios, or if Nintendo decided to stop making games and just make the console hardware. You would not want to buy their new consoles which were released just now.

Even though it might not be true that they're shutting it down, it for sure sends a strong signal that they intend to.

Google had a perception issue when they started Stadia - many people thought they would abandon it pretty quickly. Even if they're, in fact, still supporting 3rd party developers closing their 1st party studio is going to send the skepticism that existed from the beginning of Stadia into overdrive. Whatever Google plans to do, the perception now is that Stadia is already dead. That's going to make Stadia a tough(er) sell to both users and 3rd party studios.

You are correct, but, have you used Stadia at all? I have and frankly it's clear that Google is not investing in it. Even with a great internet connection, the rendering on the server side is often laggy, pixelated, blurred, and stutters. It definitely appears that they are not running the games on big enough machines or are oversharing machines or something. I tried playing 3 different games over this past weekend and all 3 were unplayable. When the user experience is that poor, the writing is on the wall.

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