The promise and peril of Google’s Stadia

This morning, Google announced their long-awaited streaming service at the Game Developers Conference. I’m not sure it qualified as a “worst-kept secret” because I don’t think it was ever hush-hush.

Named Stadia, the service doesn’t just represent Google entering the gaming sphere, but also attempting to reinvent streaming game services (as in playing a game on your local device that is running on a server) and streaming game services (as in broadcasting you playing a game for an audience).

But while I’m sure Google means well here — insomuch as they can given that requiring users of its service to stream on YouTube is a touch monopolistic — introducing new methods for firmly established procedures does have an inherent danger:

So here’s the deal:

Stadia is a service you pay a subscription fee to in order to play its library of games from a dedicated Linux server cluster built on next-gen AMD APUs each as powerful as a Xbone X and a PS4 combined. Assuming your Internet connection and screen can handle it, the service will beam your game in 4K at 60Hz with HDR.

And that’s going to be a big assumption. Unlike non-interactive media, (e.g.: video), gaming requires precisely timed inputs… that must now travel not you your own computer, but travel to a distant server, which must then send you back the results. While dropped inputs and input lag do at tims affect traditional game playing, adding in the opportunity for dropped packets on the trip to the friendly regional data center only serves to exacerbate the issue.

The ~75% of the U.S. population who aren’t able to be served by fiber are very familiar with some wild swings in service quality. While the server may vastly outperform your own computer, the quality of the image can change vastly depending on the time of day, or vn moment to moment.

There’s also still the fact that blasting super high-quality video through your Internet connection in an age when ISPs are chomping at the bit to introduce metered billing might not actually end up saving you any money over buying your own games.

Other economic concerns include how game publishers consider its effects on their sales numbers. While “hundreds” of developers are preparing titles for the service, we don’t know if it’s going to be their blockbusters or just legacy titles. And if they don’t like the results of their trial runs, they have no qualms about abandoning a platform (e.g Wii U). Will Google be restricted to a certain number of users per game based on their volume license purchasing? Will publishers not allow their new releases on the service until some time after release similar to how the major movie studios treat RedBox and Netflix?

The notion that a game can be designed around multiple APUs broadcasting to the same person is interesting (and they have Jade Raymond leading an in-house studio to produce proof of that concept), don’t expect anybody but Google’s in-house developer to crank these out until there is a much larger audience. I don’t see third parties being very eager to make a game that could never be ported onto regular PCs until Stadia really takes off.

And these aren’t the only possible issues. Angela brought up these two important points earlier in the day:

But enough peril. I promised promise too, right? Well, here it is.

First and foremost, Stadia can allow more people to play more games with less money (assuming the subscription price isn’t crazy). Imagine f the $Texas you spent every Steam sale instead gave you instant, on-demand access to the entire steam catalog instead? No time lost downloading or installing 50 GB Day One patches, no installation, no compatibility errors, no system requirements.

The only limit really would be what screens and input devices you had handy. You can stream to a Chromebook, a computer, a smart TV, a tablet or a smartphone. Some games by design won’t be well-suited to all of them, but you can still give it a go.

Google also has a fairly common-sense solution for streaming games with the service: Their cluster just renders everything twice and ships the copied signal straight to YouTube. Broadcast will never take any extra resources from your own hardware unless you’re sending a camera signal or other customizations. A lot of people who don’t have any horsepower to spare can get in on streaming with this using their existing gear. They just have to deal with being competitively locked into YouTube where the gaming companies will monetize or ban your videos depending on how nice they’re feeling at the time.

Sorry, I slipped out of the positivity for a moment, there.

So while there are several great reasons why Stadia could interest you, take today’s announcement with cautious optimism. It’s best to wait for Google to show they can overcome their obstacles in practice before you shell out your cold, hard cash.