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by ethbr0 1357 days ago
I'm hesitant to claim exceptionalism, but history supports the claim that gamers are (a) quick to claim umbrage, (b) VERY vocal on social media, (c) have a LOT of free time to shitpost, (d) have long memories, and (e) are a younger demographic (aka future consumers).

Maybe that was communicated to Google leadership and "Let's pay to prevent everyone from hating us" was the cheaper option.
1 comments
noirbot 1357 days ago
Perhaps, but I wonder if that class of gamers you're talking about is the target/actual audience for Stadia. The folks I knew who had/used Stadia were a lot more casual and non-traditional gamers, since why would you pay for an online streaming game service when you already own consoles or a robust PC?

It's not like Google has a good rep in that community already, given how much pretty much everyone on Youtube, and especially in its gaming community, complains about YT constantly. There's a reason most gaming folks are on Twitch more than Youtube and have to be bribed massively to move over to YT.

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MichaelCollins 1357 days ago
A lot of gamers are the sort of people that flame a developer of a bad game they never even bought/played in the first place. Attacking corporations is itself a sort of game they enjoy, having a personal stake in the fight isn't necessary for them.

On that note, some commentary from /v/:

    >even the shut down lagged by months
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noirbot 1356 days ago
Sure, but what I'm saying is that "lot of gamers" in my experience is the type to flame Stadia without playing or buying it anyway. I highly doubt the overlap of the population of /v/ and Stadia owners was that large, but maybe I'm wrong.
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drusepth 1357 days ago
>why would you pay for an online streaming game service when you already own consoles or a robust PC?

Lots of reasons come to mind, but the biggest ones for me were portability (playing my games at max settings while traveling, at friends' houses, at work, at coffee shops, etc), the ability to play on whatever device I wanted (usually laptop or TV depending on the game when at home, but I also played a lot on phone/tablet while travelling), and to a lesser extent some smaller perks like using less battery life / hard drive space / time updating / etc than the native alternative.

In other words, if I have the choice between playing the same game on my desktop (strictly in my office) or on the couch (or wherever else I want to be), I'm always going to pick the latter.

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