I'm short on any attempt Google makes at being a media company.
It makes a real-world difference, there's no doubt about it. Hell, this is why governments issue arts funding. The return has virtually limitless potential in more than just the financial aspects. But it does take commitment, perseverance, and often, patience.
Despite these being crucial attributes to being a good developer, it's shocking how few (people and tech organizations) exhibit them.
They fail to understand that from the outside people don't see things Google does as sure bets.
I would also say "media company" is pretty broad. Will Google become a media infrastructure company? yes (they already are). Will they become a media platform? yes, (they already are). Anything more and it's probably spreading investment too thin, but those are substantial components to media.
Not everyone has low latency, high reliability fibre in their home, yet. If you have some crappy DSL or whatever then the experience isn’t great. Likewise if your WiFi signal is anything less than perfect!
And the people who do pay for the best internet connections are often those who don’t need Stadia, because they already have latest-generation consoles and gaming PCs?
We once had a Microsoft rep come visit us to get us to publish our upcoming mobile games for Windows Mobile Tablet notreallysurewhatwasthatanymore. When we asked what kind of support they were ready to provide, they offered to lend us a device for a few weeks.
Of course it's not representative of how things should happen, but for every big partnership or exclusive you read about, there's a dozen dumb wastes of time.
For games coming to Game Pass? No.
Same for the EGS, it's not like they front all those games. (Most exclusivity is bought way later in the process.)
But the original comment is pretty much Windows Phone back then. To this day I have no idea why Microsoft was so cheap and didn't even try to get developers on their platform. Rip Lumias, some of you were some great devices.
> [Phil Spencer, head of Xbox:] [In] certain cases, we’ll pay for the full production cost of the game. Then they get all the retail opportunity on top of Game Pass. They can go sell it on PlayStation, on Steam, and on Xbox, and on Switch. For them, they’ve protected themselves from any downside risk.
https://www.theverge.com/21611412/microsoft-phil-spencer-int...
Source: gamedev who has heard from serveral devs who got offers.
https://twitter.com/RaveofRavendale/status/13094734056039096...
"With Nowhere Prophet, it was an interesting case because we were also launching on Xbox Game Pass at the same time, which had essentially already secured financial success for the console versions"
Not exclusive, still got a significant chunk of cash.
There might be a couple where Epic might have done that (kind of, I know they saved some games), but I don't think Microsoft funded any development for a gamepass game so far. (From a third party, not published by Microsoft.)
For an indie developer, this basically means worrying about whether the game will succeed a non-issue prior to launch.
was that the end of the discussion? Was there, you know, pushback like "we want 10 devices each of the two most popular sizes, and exclusivity for xxx months, and, and..."
Or did everything just fizzle out after "well, we'll lend you the unit I have in the back of my car?"
>This concern — that Google might just give up on Stadia at some point and kill the service, as it has done with so many other services over the years — was repeatedly brought up, unprompted, by every person we spoke with for this piece.
> I don’t think it says much about the future of the platform one way or another.
We probably disagree here, but to me that's an ear piercing yell about the confidence Google puts into Stadia and its future.
This is so painfully misleading.
You're either describing situations where Microsoft or Epic have become the publisher for the game, or you're describing situations where extremely large titles are paid to exclusively release on a platform where they will then recoup costs from as the sales have to go through their platform.
2. Was the offer to be a timed exclusive like with Epic, or just to add integration for Stadia? I would assume the offers money to be very different depending on that.
3. Are we comparing similarly sized games? "one prominent indie developer" is kinda vague. Again not sure how comparable it is with Epic/Microsoft deals.
From a customer perspective, it gets the game on streaming, Xbox, and Windows PC.
For reference when Microsoft/Epic approaches the studios for games on their platforms they front the entire development cost. Sometimes millions of dollars. Google is just cheap and won’t invest in their own platform.
Direct quote: "We were approached by the Stadia team," one prominent indie developer told me. "Usually with that kind of thing, they lead with some kind of offer that would give you an incentive to go with them." But the incentive "was kind of non-existent," they said. "That's the short of it."
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-so-few-games-on-goog...