[jillesvangurp]

I pay for Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon Prime. I have no illusions about content being there long term. Something similar for games is missing though arguably it is content that you consume and then discard.

Maybe, consider that it's not about you but about everyone else. I don't have a water cooled led blinking monstrosity hiding under my desk pretending it's a industrial vacuum cleaner. So, any game I play, I'm dealing with lousy framerates, and endless tweaking, etc. I never really invested in owning consoles. And I stopped buying games years ago. But I'd probably play Red Redemption and similar games out of curiosity if only I had something to play it on at a reasonable price.

In other words, Stadia potentially solves a problem for casual gamers like me already used to subscribing to content that might like to try out a few high end games but are not willing to spend gazillions on the latest gear.

Of course Google's execution here is worth criticizing. It looks like they got a giant meh from the gaming industry and are showing off another empty room problem. They need a catalogue and a marketing story around it. Neither is something Google has ever done well. They just don't do the content game very well. Youtube premium/red/or whatever it is called is pretty much dead in the water for the same reason. It's the same failed strategy: build it and they will come.

[cmcd]

Unless I misunderstand their model is not like the companies you mention since you still have to buy the games. Imagine paying monthly for Netflix and still having to pay full price for every movie you watch without owning it.

[Crinus]

The problem is that it is about "me" (and others who think like me) because what everyone else does also affects what i get to experience myself thanks to market forces. In other words, if everyone goes Stadia (or a Stadia-lookalike) then the market (both for software but also - and most importantly - for hardware) will vanish. At best it will only be available for very high prices, just for the rich few, but i'm not rich so that wouldn't mean anything to me.

[washadjeffmad]

Don't get region blindness, here. Also, never forget the power of open source and self hosting. If a model like Stadia works for other, there's no reason not to put it work for yourself.

I can already stream my Windows gaming container on my KVM Linux host with VFIO to my smartphone with BT connected controller. I could also do the same with just a RasPi running the SteamLink service. This isn't new or novel (I remember Stadia's concept being done multiple times before), but it is possible.

The only real danger to this is proprietary platform dependence. More people being able to game when and where they want isn't bad, but we can't rely on Valve forever to make sure there's not another GFWL-type uprising.

[Crinus]

I am not talking about technical matters here (and FWIW Stadia is based on Linux), i am talking about control. Games that i stream from my own PC to my own handheld (or whatever) are still under my control, so that is perfectly fine. Games that i - wont, but just for the sake of argument - stream from Stadia are under Google's control which is not fine.

Proprietary platform dependence isn't much of an issue when you can hack around that platform. A win32 game using directx on my own PC is way more preferable than a Linux game using Vulkan on someone else's cloud server.