Re:Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service
by ocdtrekkie on Tuesday March 19, 2019 @01:51PM
(#19433416)
Have they even said anything about the business model? I'm a few minutes behind on the stream, but I don't recall any mention of licenses or subscriptions. The only "practical" example of launching they game they showed was... out of a button on a YouTube video.
EDIT: A "Stadia store" was briefly mentioned shortly after my comment, it looked like it was tied into Google Play.
Re:Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service
by kabdib on Tuesday March 19, 2019 @03:45PM
(#19434911)
They didn't say anything concrete about money.
I'm guessing developers will be compensated with "exposure" :-)
Re:Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service
by ocdtrekkie on Tuesday March 19, 2019 @03:53PM
(#19435002)
The "Stadia store" suggested games would likely be sold or subscribed to. But I definitely have to imagine some sort of trial model being available for the launch-from-YouTube options. Perhaps a time-limited option, that won't stop you from joining a streamer with Crowd Play, but would cut you off after a while if you hadn't already purchased it?
I'm very curious about the expenses game developers will face too, which definitely wasn't brought up. Id Software bragged about just using one Stadia instance, but then later demonstrations showing split screen gaming "without compromise" was shown running each screen on a different Stadia instance. While Google suggests this makes split screen gaming possible again, my guess is that split screen gaming costs the developers twice as much to implement as a service cost, since it uses twice as much hardware. Making it probably mostly a nonstarter anyways.
I also don't like the idea of games-as-a-service in the sense that I only own a license to the game for as long as I pay a monthly fee. I'm okay with licensing content within the game (i.e. DLC), but I shy away from subscription games services like Xbox Games Pass or EA's Origin subscription.
A streaming game product like this doesn't solve that issue. Additionally, the latency issue, like you pointed out, is too much for me to consider _not_ owning my own gaming hardware.