Nvidia literally throws you in a VM, where you have to log into Steam and use it as a computer. You & I may be gamers or computer users, but normal people don't want to deal with that shit. It also again assumed you have a Steam/Epic account to begin, or else that's another layer you have to deal with.

With Stadia, you press one button and you're in the game 5s later. It also has deep integration, allowing friends list, voice chat, game invites, achievements, etc. Nvidia relies on Steam for those (Epic doesn't have most of it). That's just the surface level integration too. By having games integrate with Stadia's API, they can do other kinds of optimizations, like having simple optimized options, compares to Nvidia where you have to mess around with the settings like on PC.

If you've used both, it's night and day experience. Again obviously for you and me, we're used to PC gaming, but for average people wanting to play some AAA game, GFN is a complete no-go.

I've silently listened on Discord to two different friends trying to get GFN working (for Among Us) in the past couple weeks. It's crazy how hard it can apparently be to install and set up for the average person.

I just downloaded it, booted it up, signed in, and it launched my game.

I just asked one of the friends what his problem was and he said that it was just the servers that were down, so I guess it wasn't too hard to set up for him after all.

> you have to log into Steam and use it as a computer

If I recall correctly, you have to do this once, and it can save your log-in details for next time.

> You & I may be gamers or computer users, but normal people don't want to deal with that shit.

Gamers are their target audience.

> By having games integrate with Stadia's API, they can do other kinds of optimizations, like having simple optimized options, compares to Nvidia where you have to mess around with the settings like on PC.

That's true. I've found it's sometimes necessary to change the settings, as the default graphical settings are far below what the hardware is capable of handling.

I'm sure nVidia could do something about that if they had the will to.

> Gamers are their target audience.

I don't quite agree on that one. If you already have a 2000$ gaming PC with a huge Steam catalog, Stadia is most definitely not targeting you. Nvidia is.

Stadia is targeting people who want to play the latest AAA game or EA sports game, without having to invest in a $500 console or $1000 PC. You just play $60 and you're good to go on your laptop you use for Facebook, or spend $100 to play on your TV. They're trying to expand the gaming pie, trying to get all those people who will play games on their phones because it's easy and low friction, but won't invest in high friction setups like a gaming PC.

At least that's my take on it.

> I don't quite agree on that one. If you already have a 2000$ gaming PC with a huge Steam catalog, Stadia is most definitely not targeting you. Nvidia is.

I don't think so. If you have the hardware, there's little reason not to run it locally. They're both going after the same market, but with different sales models.

There's probably never going to be a subscription that gives you access to all the latest titles.

I'll repeat what I said: "the value prop needs to focus on the job at hand: playing a _specific_ game which happens to be your favorite game you play mostly. Thinking of it as some kind of a gaming platform is not the way."

By considering Steam and Epic, you are already looking at this from the perspective of a platform. I am simply saying Stadia is better if the game you love is already there. NFL Madden is the latest Stadia promo right now. If most of your gaming time is consumed playing Madden, Stadia is probably the way to pay for it.

Xcloud or Geforcenow offer the best of both worlds. You "own" (in whatever sense you can "own" the game) the game and you have the choice where you want to play it. Not at home/cheap notebook? No problem. With Stadia you can only stream the game.

The question for me is if it works on a cheap notebook or on the road, why wouldn't you just want to play it this way even when you are at home? Why do I want to own anything? I just want to play the games I bought.

> Why do I want to own anything?

Because Stadia offers an inferior experience to local rendering. In particular, the way the video compression crushes all dark colors into a single shade of black. Plus, when Google kills Stadia in a year, you'll have lost the games you purchased and paid a subscription fee for.

I was excited to see Google make a game that would only be possible on Stadia, be it an MMO, races with hundreds of cars, or something more creative their designers could imagine. With their internal developers shut down, all that's left is more expensive, inferior quality versions of games I could play elsewhere.

Stadia doesn't need to be better than local rendering, it just needs to let me play my game with an acceptable quality. I'm not 100% satisfied with the current quality and I'd like it to improve, but as I grow older I'm more interested in experiencing the game's content rather than worrying about how superior my resolution/PQ/fps is. I don't care if I lose the games I purchased 2 years ago, once I've played the game for a while I'm done with it, I'm not interested in continuously revisiting old games over and over again.

Honestly, I'm sick of the limitations of traditional gaming. If that means some compression quality loss and being somewhat inferior to local rendering, then that's the price I'm willing to pay. Playing games is not one of the most important parts of my life, but with the amount of crap I've put up with dealing with flexibility and compatibility issues of a superior local rendering setup for modern games, you might think it was.

Because playing with video compression, a max of 60fps and added latency is not ideal.

That's a fair point. I take this as being similar to reading a book on an iPad vs a kindle. Sure I can read a book on an iPad, but a kindle gives me a better "book experience". Streaming games is like reading a book on an iPad. Owning a PC or console is like reading the book on a device that is better suited for the format.

That analogy probably lands differently for different people. I haven’t used Stadia and don’t have a strong opinion of it. (But I’m open to it - my normal gaming approach is along the lines of XKCD 606 - I’m currently working through my PS3 library.) However, I find reading books on an iPad to be viscerally unpleasant, even though an iPad is my primary mobile computing device.

Not possible with Stadia. You have to buy the games again to stream them.

Why? Probably less latency/better quality with a PC.

Is Cyberpunk better on a PC or better on Stadia? I've heard it's the best to play on Stadia.

Cyberpunk on Stadia is the PC version, it's just running on hardware in a server farm somewhere, rather than under your desk. Afaik they didn't make any meaningful Stadia specific changes to it.

Obviously it depends on how well your local hardware compares to Stadias server farm too.

The PC and Stadia versions are much better than the PS4 and Xbox One versions though - those do not run well at all.

I suspect the actual PS5 and Xbox Series X versions will be relatively similar to the PC/Stadia version, but they haven't been released yet - you can only play the last gen console versions via backwards compatibility.

Madden isn’t available on GeForce Now apparently, but besides that I don’t think you’ve explained why Stadia is better. On Stadia and GeForce Now, you pay a subscription fee and pay for the game. Is it something about the Stadia hardware that makes it better?

Yes. Stadia does not assume you know how to use a gaming PC. Steam and Epic might be fine if you already know what those things are. If you don't, it is far too complex. Billions of people understand the simple app store model that comes with their phone. It's the one stadia uses.

Steam and Epic are literally app stores. I guess you have to link an extra account to use it with GeForce Now? For that minuscule amount of extra friction you get access to a much larger set of games on stores that won’t shut down when Google gets bored in a year or two.

edit: in what way does Steam or Epic expect you to understand how to use a “gaming PC”?

In the way that those are apps that gamers install on their gaming pc.

You're not making any sense to me. Steam is just an app store. A "gaming PC" is just a regular PC with more powerful hardware in it, using software on it does not take any special skills specific to gaming PCs.

And as the other commenter points out, playing steam games via geforce now doesn't even require installing the steam app anyway, it's just an account link.

I am struggling to find an analogy but here goes. I think it's like the difference between a console in the cloud v/s a gaming pc in the cloud. For casual gamers, a console in the cloud with minimal configuration - switch it on and start playing - makes the most sense. If GeForce Now is a hosted gaming PC, I assume running a Windows O/S, it likely has the same configuration overhead of PC games, which most casual gamers don't want to deal with.

Can you elaborate? You don’t need to install Steam or the game to play that game on GeForce Now.

Have you ever used Steam on Geforce Now? There is absolutely no friction. You do not even have to know Steam exists. You just search for the game you want, and do one more sign-up.

I have. I used Geforce now, stadia, luna. I bought the hardware controllers. I've tried all of these platforms across all different form factors (pcs, laptop, ipads, iphones, android, LG television). I've signed up for individual games, game publisher channels UBISoft+. I invest millions of dollars into companies and my thesis is product driven. All of this is research I conduct myself, for myself. That isn't to say these services have gotten better since I last tested (Geforce i probably tested in November). From what I remember, it was a PC virtual machine with a queue system for availability. It wasn't "magic". Stadia is magic. Luna is somewhere in between.

On Stadia, you just have to pay for the game. The subscription just unlocks HD and some free games. The fact that few people are aware of this really highlights how terribly Google marketed this.

Nvidia has a monthly subscription costs if you don't want the free plan limitations like a queue time and a one hour session limit. Stadia's free plan limitation is only 1080p and stereo instead of 4K resolution, 5.1 surround sound, and HDR.

If you're just buying a single game, Stadia comes out ahead on price when you're only paying $60 for the game rather than Geforce Now where you pay $60 for the game and then a monthly fee for every month you're playing.

The UI is worse as you need to make yet another account and pay for steam. That experience is terrible enough to kill the thing for a non-gamer.

Do you really think "non-gamers" are going to be converted by this? At this point if you're a "non-gamer" it isn't for lack of availability.

You seem to be using "non-gamer" as a synonym for "too inexperienced to use basic modern technology", which I don't think is a widespread problem outside of age ranges that didn't grow up with the internet. A much bigger group is surely just people that aren't that interested in video games. (Unless you think Stadia is actually going after the geriatric market, which seems short sighted.)

Just go read /r/stadia or the /r/games thread covering this, yes people are convinced by this and there's many comments talking about how they can't stand the UX on GFN.

Too inexperienced to use technology is a strawman, the real comparison is do they prefer the benefit of the better UX more than they fear the amorphous dangers of lock-in. The answer is easily yes.

Do a handful of posts on the tiny Stadia subreddit justify the massive investment Google has made to create yet another App Store? Is the market of people who use Apple Mail because they don’t know how to register a Gmail account large and profitable enough for them to justify the investment?

The problem isn’t just lock in. There are also less games on Stadia. The lack of available games is directly due to Google’s strategy of recreating yet another App Store.

There are less games on Stadia because we are just over 1 year into a 10 year platform growth story. Just because Google is Google doesn't mean they don't suffer from the same chicken and egg problems that startups have. Especially when the market is over 1T and has incumbents like MSFT and sony. Give it time.

All the other gaming platforms have Fortnite (or insert other popular game) on them, why not Stadia?

Because Stadia is 1 years old

Actually, yes. I am a professional investor with a product-driven thesis. Sub-reddits are one of the most honest, representative samples for the quality and love for a product by the market. I bet millions on this.

I'd get some of your Stadia feedback from outside the Stadia subreddit specifically - it seems to either be filled with sycophants, or has a mod team that removes anything negative (or both). Sentiment elsewhere on reddit is completely different.

Do you have a recommendation?

It’s maybe a tiny bit worse, but describing it as terrible is a pretty extraordinary stretch. Google is fucked if the entire business model of Stadia, requiring massive investment in hardware, software, and content, depends on consumers being too stupid to link an account between app stores.

Slightly better UX is the raison d'etre of companies like sony, apple, zoom, slack, etc. It matters a lot.

The level of inconvenience is on the same level as having to log into Gmail on my iPhone. That doesn’t stop me from using Gmail or buying an iPhone. UX matters a lot, but not that much.

Steam is free by the way, since I guess I didn’t point that out in my last post. You just have to buy the games, same as Stadia.

Nah, I need to type in my password every single time into steam. My password manager doesn't work. Since I have a very long password, it's almost impossible for me to play GFN.