The Pre-E3 Show: Google Stadia
Jun. 6th, 2019 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xyzzysqrlSo this isn't actually an E3 ~thing~ at all, but I figured I'd remind myself how to liveblog and whatnot by covering Google's "Stadia Connect" announcement.
Stadia is Google's attempt at a Netflix-for-games streaming service. Naturally it'll hinge a lot on what games they can provide and all, as well as intangibles like "how the games feel to play when streamed from a server hundreds of miles away".
I can't cover that part, but I can riff on dudes in suits talking about the Future Of Video Games. So that's what I plan to do.
Phil Harrison appears in a featureless white void, in the style of the Matrix, to inform us that we're going to need guns. Lots of guns. ... I mean, talk about the Stadia.
Phil recaps previous events, and brings up that he's eager to tell us about games and how we can play them. Wants to make gaming "more accessable". Sure why not.
No console, play on anything with a screen. I eagerly await someone playing Assassin's Creed on their fridge.
Larian Studios reveal and suddenly my ears are UP high. A dude in Flaming Fist armor morphs into a mind flayer and we have Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian. I'm genuinely shocked and amazed to see this happen and I'm delighted as well. The CGI was boring, but the announcement? Superb.
They tripled the staff at Larian to do this. Good luck, guys. Remember what happened to Bioware when they ballooned up.
Anyway now he's talking numbers. If you have 35 megabits per second you can stream 4K video at 60FPS, which is nice. I don't know what my mbs is, and I don't own a 4K screen.
Talking about the beta. I was in the beta and tried out streaming Assassin's Creed Odyssey via Chrome. It worked pretty okay for me.
The Stadia controller, which is the most bland-ass 3D-printed hunk of plastic I've ever seen, is pushed a bit. Use any controller. That's nice. But if you use the Stadia controller, it will internet-connect to the PC running the game at Google HQ for less input lag.
More games listed.
Grunty cynical white guy with crewcut wants you to blow some buildings up on an island somewhere. Keeps making "wolf" comparisons. Will someone please explain how "alphas" work to the general population? Please? They're using this to show off picture-in-picture co-op. Which is kinda cool. -- This was Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.
Something very Dreamworks Interactive Meets Silent Hill about a scared young girl chased by monsters. "Gylt". This looks good but maybe too creepy for me.
Wacky top-down party-game looking thing about ... Stealing? Causing chaos? with four people. "Get Packed" oh it's a moving simulator. Isn't moving high-stress enough without adding heavy traffic and explosions?
The Division 2. This one's already out, so they're really lingering on it a long time, making a big deal out of how the infrastructure of Google means they can really run it great and you'll see all the 4ks and the pixels and the physics etc etc.
John Justice, which cannot be his real name oh my god, steps out to tell us about how you can save money by not actually buying games and instead streaming them.
$9.99 a month for "Pro" streaming, if you want to be a "Founder" you can pre-order the starter kit and first-tip-top-highest-tier access and a bunch of hardware and a gift-your-friends pass.
"You'll get the name you want, the bragging rights that come with it"... there are zero bragging rights attached to my name.
You also get "Destiny 2 Complete" which is nice, I didn't realize it was finished. You get everything and you can transfer your character from anywhere.
Anyway the Founder's Edition is like $130 but whatever, I don't even know what a Chromecast Ultra IS. "LIMITED TIME! LIMITED QUANTITIES!"
Destiny 2's new expansion pack: These wizards are GOING BACK TO THE MOON. What a lunatic move. I'm sorry that was a terrible pun. ... I'm not really that sorry. Anyway THEY'VE WOKEN THE HIVE again and let's just re-run that mission a couple dozen times I guess.
If you don't want to subscribe, you can just buy games on Stadia and then... not... own them and just stream them from elsewhere that feels weird??
Anyway they're just spamming game trailers now, I can't list them all off. Then it ends.
Fuck yeah Baldur's Gate 3 I guess! Uh.. Final thoughts on the Stadia:
So unless I'm hugely misreading this, it's ten bucks to play whatever games they put on the service OR you can pay full price to buy games ala carte.
... Why would you not subscribe to the service, though? Something, somewhere doesn't feel like it adds up.
Doing more research it seems like there may be "Stadia Supported" games that aren't on their subscription service at all. So that $10 a month doesn't get you everything, it just gets you free scraps and a discount on actually buying more games which, again, you will own only on the Stadia platform as far as I can tell.
I'm not seeing any "get this on the Microsoft Store/Steam/Epic/whatever AND Stadia" bundling.
That's a much less appealing service. We're going to have to wait and see how this pans out, I suspect.
Google's Stadia looks Firmly Okay. The promise with a service like this is that you'll be able to play PC games at the highest possible quality without upgrading your PC or even OWNING a PC if you don't want to. Whether that service quality survives an actual worldwide launch is the problem, because the moment they announce "Our servers went down, launch issues" is the moment this thing dies in the hearts of many.
I respect what they're trying, but what they're pitching as the big benefit isn't the thing I care about. I've never hesitated to dial down graphics to make the game run better, and I've never exactly cared about hitting 60fps all the time. If you take "BEHOLD OUR STREAMING MIRACLE: A 4K 60FPS GAME" away... there isn't a lot actually left over.
Like this is just the most fucking expensive-ass way to buy Destiny 2 I've ever seen.
Good luck to them, I guess. I hope they don't shoot this in the back of the head like they have so many other projects.
Stadia is Google's attempt at a Netflix-for-games streaming service. Naturally it'll hinge a lot on what games they can provide and all, as well as intangibles like "how the games feel to play when streamed from a server hundreds of miles away".
I can't cover that part, but I can riff on dudes in suits talking about the Future Of Video Games. So that's what I plan to do.
Phil Harrison appears in a featureless white void, in the style of the Matrix, to inform us that we're going to need guns. Lots of guns. ... I mean, talk about the Stadia.
Phil recaps previous events, and brings up that he's eager to tell us about games and how we can play them. Wants to make gaming "more accessable". Sure why not.
No console, play on anything with a screen. I eagerly await someone playing Assassin's Creed on their fridge.
Larian Studios reveal and suddenly my ears are UP high. A dude in Flaming Fist armor morphs into a mind flayer and we have Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian. I'm genuinely shocked and amazed to see this happen and I'm delighted as well. The CGI was boring, but the announcement? Superb.
They tripled the staff at Larian to do this. Good luck, guys. Remember what happened to Bioware when they ballooned up.
Anyway now he's talking numbers. If you have 35 megabits per second you can stream 4K video at 60FPS, which is nice. I don't know what my mbs is, and I don't own a 4K screen.
Talking about the beta. I was in the beta and tried out streaming Assassin's Creed Odyssey via Chrome. It worked pretty okay for me.
The Stadia controller, which is the most bland-ass 3D-printed hunk of plastic I've ever seen, is pushed a bit. Use any controller. That's nice. But if you use the Stadia controller, it will internet-connect to the PC running the game at Google HQ for less input lag.
More games listed.
Grunty cynical white guy with crewcut wants you to blow some buildings up on an island somewhere. Keeps making "wolf" comparisons. Will someone please explain how "alphas" work to the general population? Please? They're using this to show off picture-in-picture co-op. Which is kinda cool. -- This was Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.
Something very Dreamworks Interactive Meets Silent Hill about a scared young girl chased by monsters. "Gylt". This looks good but maybe too creepy for me.
Wacky top-down party-game looking thing about ... Stealing? Causing chaos? with four people. "Get Packed" oh it's a moving simulator. Isn't moving high-stress enough without adding heavy traffic and explosions?
The Division 2. This one's already out, so they're really lingering on it a long time, making a big deal out of how the infrastructure of Google means they can really run it great and you'll see all the 4ks and the pixels and the physics etc etc.
John Justice, which cannot be his real name oh my god, steps out to tell us about how you can save money by not actually buying games and instead streaming them.
$9.99 a month for "Pro" streaming, if you want to be a "Founder" you can pre-order the starter kit and first-tip-top-highest-tier access and a bunch of hardware and a gift-your-friends pass.
"You'll get the name you want, the bragging rights that come with it"... there are zero bragging rights attached to my name.
You also get "Destiny 2 Complete" which is nice, I didn't realize it was finished. You get everything and you can transfer your character from anywhere.
Anyway the Founder's Edition is like $130 but whatever, I don't even know what a Chromecast Ultra IS. "LIMITED TIME! LIMITED QUANTITIES!"
Destiny 2's new expansion pack: These wizards are GOING BACK TO THE MOON. What a lunatic move. I'm sorry that was a terrible pun. ... I'm not really that sorry. Anyway THEY'VE WOKEN THE HIVE again and let's just re-run that mission a couple dozen times I guess.
If you don't want to subscribe, you can just buy games on Stadia and then... not... own them and just stream them from elsewhere that feels weird??
Anyway they're just spamming game trailers now, I can't list them all off. Then it ends.
Fuck yeah Baldur's Gate 3 I guess! Uh.. Final thoughts on the Stadia:
So unless I'm hugely misreading this, it's ten bucks to play whatever games they put on the service OR you can pay full price to buy games ala carte.
... Why would you not subscribe to the service, though? Something, somewhere doesn't feel like it adds up.
Doing more research it seems like there may be "Stadia Supported" games that aren't on their subscription service at all. So that $10 a month doesn't get you everything, it just gets you free scraps and a discount on actually buying more games which, again, you will own only on the Stadia platform as far as I can tell.
I'm not seeing any "get this on the Microsoft Store/Steam/Epic/whatever AND Stadia" bundling.
That's a much less appealing service. We're going to have to wait and see how this pans out, I suspect.
Google's Stadia looks Firmly Okay. The promise with a service like this is that you'll be able to play PC games at the highest possible quality without upgrading your PC or even OWNING a PC if you don't want to. Whether that service quality survives an actual worldwide launch is the problem, because the moment they announce "Our servers went down, launch issues" is the moment this thing dies in the hearts of many.
I respect what they're trying, but what they're pitching as the big benefit isn't the thing I care about. I've never hesitated to dial down graphics to make the game run better, and I've never exactly cared about hitting 60fps all the time. If you take "BEHOLD OUR STREAMING MIRACLE: A 4K 60FPS GAME" away... there isn't a lot actually left over.
Like this is just the most fucking expensive-ass way to buy Destiny 2 I've ever seen.
Good luck to them, I guess. I hope they don't shoot this in the back of the head like they have so many other projects.
