Is Stadia a revolution in the gaming industry?

For those in the tank: March 19, 2019, Google announced the streaming service Stadia . A service that allows you to play all games, in fact, right in the browser. From any device, whether it’s a tablet, smartphone, TV set-top box, PC, toaster, calculator, refrigerator .

In this short article, I would like to express my thoughts on the future of the gaming industry if the initiative from Google is successful. I want to warn you right away that I am not an expert in the field and, for the most part, all of the following is my personal opinion.

We all know that at the moment there are several streaming services that are functioning (Playkey, Playstation Now, etc.), but they have not gained popularity among the masses. For different reasons. The announcement from Google stirred up the gaming community, analysts (and not so) talked about the revolution, predict the death of consoles. And the main argument: "this is Google."

Well, that sounds kind of true. And if you believe it, it’s also beautiful. I came home after a hard day, sat down at my old Celeron, opened Metro Exodus in the browser, played, streamed it all to the Internet, went to the toilet, continued playing the game on the smartphone, and so on. In general, it sounds really beautiful. I will not delve into the technical component of this issue, we just take it as a constant - technically everything will be at the highest level.

But it confuses, first of all, the confidence of all admiring Stage that all games will cooperate with Google. And how will Stadia be distributed at all? By subscription? Or do you have to pay for the games? It will be more convenient for the user to subscribe. For the developer, payment is more likely. Maybe a hybrid model? Do you want a game on your account? Pay. Want to play rent? Take a subscription. But what about the prices?

If Google chooses a subscription model. How much will such a subscription cost? After all, the developer will have to abandon the usual distribution of games, of course, digital copies of games will continue to be sold, because Stadia will not take the entire market for itself, yet sales of digital copies will drop significantly. But will Google be able to make up for losses to developers? Microtransactions will reach a new level. Lootboxes will be everywhere, because developers need money. All games will essentially f2p with in-game items at every turn.

If Google chooses a model for selling games, like on Steam, Epic Games Store, etc. You have an account, you buy a game, get it on your account and you can play from anywhere. There are still 2 options.

Option 1: Google cooperates with stores, makes OAuth authorization, money of buyers nevertheless passes through Steam and through Google.

Option 2: Google launches its store, which will compete with Steam.

Personally, in my opinion, Valve will not want either the first or the second. Cause? Still money. Steam is a leader in gaming distribution. Epic Games Store of course is trying to fight Steam, but at the moment, the situation is not in favor of EGS. Why should Steam give back part of Google’s profit?

We talked about the developers, talked about the distributors. We turn to the manufacturers of game consoles. More specifically, specifically to Sony. There are two options, again. Or Sony begins to cooperate, significantly reducing the number of consoles produced (because people will start switching to Stadia, which means they will stop buying consoles), release games including those for Stadia. Either there will be no cooperation and Sony will continue to bend its line. And Stadia owners won't be able to play Sony exclusives. And such people will still need to buy a console if they want to play their favorite games from Sony.

Collaboration will likely result in a loss of Sony profits. Will they agree to this? Sounds doubtful, but still possible.

I did not say about the console from Microsoft, but in fact the situation is the same. Except for the situation with exclusives, because they still go to the PC.

Now, iron makers. It is still unknown whether there will be a decline in sales of gaming hardware, because manufacturers are more likely to supply a large amount of equipment to Google. But rather, they still lose a little. But this is not accurate .

And finally, the users. Yes, probably the only winners in the case of the success of Stadia. You no longer need to think about buying and upgrading iron. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on games. After all, a subscription (nevertheless, everyone around it says that this is exactly what Stadia will have) will cost less in any case than the amount of money a gamer spends on games a year (including the cost of upgrading iron).

As a result, it turns out that users are happy, and everyone else (except Google) is at a loss. Unless of course Google decides to take all the losses upon itself. But it is.

I said in advance that we announced for the constant - technically everything is executed at the highest level. Even by users. In any country. Any resident. But if you deviate from this constant, then the technical problems are added to the current number of Stadia problems. Which are unlikely to be corrected in the next few years .

What do you think of Stadia?

PS Personally, I myself believe that Stadia will not be able to win the hearts of gamers and make a revolution in the gaming industry in the coming years.

PPS And yes, I’m a slab.

A couple of links:

Google Stadia Website Google Stadia
Presentation
Opinion of Anton Logvinov