Hacker News Reader

Comment by Sakos | Hacker News Reader

I am so glad that Stadia is floundering, if not failing. It's one of the worst things I've seen in the industry for consumers regarding consumer rights and freedom, and it's any publisher's wet dream. Imagine a platform where users can't mod in their own content or modify (or even improve) the experience in any way. They can go nuts with DLC and microtransactions. They can ensure we only get the experience they decide on. It's a nightmare for consumers and I hope it never gets off the ground.

View on HN

> Imagine a platform where users can't mod in their own content or modify (or even improve) the experience in any way.

I don’t like Stadia, but doesn’t this describe most if not all major consoles?

Every console was hacked to allow mods. e.g. the smash bros community built mods such as Project M for the modded gamecube and Wii, and even mods of smash ultimate for the Switch.

Nothing is preventing anyone from hacking Stadia either, but the percentage of people who jail break their consoles is really low due to the complexity (most aren't techies), the amount of work involved, and because online multiplayer will most likely no longer work long term; or in Stadia's case - you can no longer access your games.

I feel the parent comment was referring to PC gaming, where you don't need to do anything crazy to customize the games that you paid for.

Stadia's death doesn't mean the death of game streaming. There's other competition in that area on the market (GeForce Now, XCloud, PS Now), and unfortunately it seems pretty much inevitable at this point (as much as I also hate the idea of it)

But I can at least say I'm glad Google isn't getting a foothold in yet another area of technology

This is a super cynical take and does not at all address the wants and needs of the majority of users. Removing the need for a gaming PC reduces the barrier to entry and increases the number of people with access to PC games. Not everyone cares about modding their experience, but tons of people would benefit from access to these otherwise unreachable games. Their access through game streaming platforms doesn't hurt your ability to mod.

> Removing the need for a gaming PC reduces the barrier to entry and increases the number of people with access to PC games.

This is not important at all for someone who is a gaming enthusiast and doesn't want services like Stadia to become the new norm and have their enthusiast hobby heavily locked down by publishers and cloud services.

The free market responds to these inputs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com