Farewell Stadia

Jack-0 · September 2022

xgoku1 wrote: »

moving forward, subsequent incremental patches will occur every other week. If an emergency arises, we’ll of course work with Stadia to get a patch published ASAP. So in general, PC incrementals will now occur bi-weekly, but if needed, we can update quickly.

Somewhat off topic, but what on earth? Bi-weekly means twice a week (see also bi-annually, twice a year); fortnightly means once every two weeks. Learn to English, ZOS!

virtus753 · September 2022

Jack-0 wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

moving forward, subsequent incremental patches will occur every other week. If an emergency arises, we’ll of course work with Stadia to get a patch published ASAP. So in general, PC incrementals will now occur bi-weekly, but if needed, we can update quickly.

Somewhat off topic, but what on earth? Bi-weekly means twice a week (see also bi-annually, twice a year); fortnightly means once every two weeks. Learn to English, ZOS!

Biweekly can mean either. Fortnightly is incredibly rare in American English.

Ascarl · September 2022

I hope this opens the door to Geforce Now

AVaelham · September 2022

Sigh, I've been playing on Stadia for more than a year now and it was the best compromise for me. Sure, the lack of add-ons can suck sometimes, but the lagfest I was usually experiencing on PC EU (mainly due to my PC I suppose) was gone. I don't understand the absolute vitriol people had towards Stadia as a platform.

Memory_In_Motion · September 2022

Dear Stadia player,

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On September 29, 2022, we announced that the Stadia service will be shut down on January 18, 2023. We’re getting in touch with important information on what this means for you as a Stadia player.

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Availability

Stadia will remain available for gameplay until the service is shut down on January 18, 2023. During this period, you will have access to your game library, including Pro games if you had an active Pro subscription as of September 29, 2022. Be aware that publisher support for games may vary, and it’s possible that your gameplay experience may be affected during the shut-down period.

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Refunds

Google is offering a refund to Stadia users for Stadia hardware purchases (Stadia Controller, Stadia Founder’s Edition, Stadia Premiere Edition, or Play and Watch with Google TV Package) made on the Google Store, and game purchases and add-on purchases made on the Stadia Store. The refund process will take some time, but we expect to have the majority of refunds processed by January 18, 2023. We expect to be able to automatically issue refunds for a substantial portion of transactions as a credit to the form of payment used to make the purchase. For purchases that we are not able to automatically refund, you will receive an email with details on how to obtain your refund.

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Transactions and subscription fees

All commerce functionality (the ability to buy games, new subscriptions, add-ons or in-game purchases) on Stadia has now been disabled. Users who held an active Stadia Pro subscription as of September 29, 2022 will not be charged for access to their Pro library or other subscription entitlements during the shut-down period. Historical Stadia Pro subscription fees will not be eligible for refund.

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Your Stadia account and data

You will be able to export your Stadia data, such as profile information, game stats, social data, save files and captures from Google Takeout until the Stadia service shuts down on January 18, 2023, after which point your Stadia data will be permanently deleted. You can also delete Stadia from your Google account at any time or delete your Google account entirely. Please note that deleting your Google account will result in deletion of all data and content in that account, including emails, photos, and files, and may increase the amount of time it takes to receive a refund of your Stadia purchases. Google may however retain certain data, including transaction data, for up to three years following the shut-down of the service for the purposes of processing refunds and providing customer support.

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More information is available in the Help Center, which will be updated as new information becomes available.

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The Stadia team

TechMaybeHic · September 2022

AVaelham wrote: »

Sigh, I've been playing on Stadia for more than a year now and it was the best compromise for me. Sure, the lack of add-ons can suck sometimes, but the lagfest I was usually experiencing on PC EU (mainly due to my PC I suppose) was gone. I don't understand the absolute vitriol people had towards Stadia as a platform.

Well after I triggered some on the performance blame; we also can talk about how Google threw money at developers for exclusive right for their streaming platform. I'm told GeForce Now ran it a lot better with add-ons before getting yanked. And now you probably will see a pause before it's able to be on there, Luna, or maybe Microsoft's streaming service

EDIT: It actually would be nice of ZOS to let people who do Stadia now know if they have a plan. Might be just starting as it sounds like developers were just as surprised as users.

Danikat · September 2022

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

EDIT: It actually would be nice of ZOS to let people who do Stadia now know if they have a plan. Might be just starting as it sounds like developers were just as surprised as users.

Apparently not just developers but even people working on Stadia found out the same day the news went public.

There's been several game developers on Twitter saying they had a game coming out on Stadia soon (ranging from early next week to February) and they have no idea what's happening with it because the first they knew about it shutting down was when they saw an article online.

I assume ZOS are in the same situation, so they're probably in the very early stages of trying to figure out how this affects whatever arrangement they have (had?) with Google and what they can do next. But I hope they figure something out for the people who are relying on Stadia to play.

Paralyse · September 2022

This is hardly surprising news, Google announced that it would be moving away from Stadia over 1.5 years ago (Feb 2021) due to the streamer controversy and associated DMCA uproar (Oct 2020).

One of the problems of being a technological leader / early adopter is that all of your competitors will learn from your mistakes and push a better product to market unless you can get committed to your product and support the developers and players who are driving its growth. Google/Stadia failed to do either of those options, leaving devs hanging and making a ton of promises to users that never got followed through with.

The concept was good (no more spending megabucks on the latest console, on PC's with huge SSD's and unobtainium graphics cards, play from any device that will run the client, cross-platform gaming) -- get some of those AAA games into the hands of people who would never ever be able to play them otherwise!! -- but making people buy the game backfired in a big way especially with a library of games that was a bare shell of what was being hyped up back in 2018-2019.

I think if they had gone with a "one subscription, any game" model -- see Amazon -- and then had a library to match that, Stadia would have been far more popular than it was. However, the number of gamers out there who were both willing to spend $40-$70 on a game and also had enough devices to make it worth the investment, was greatly overestimated by the big G. In short, they fundamentally misjudged the market for Stadia and also misjudged what gamers really wanted (sub-based game streaming.)

Add to this the fact that many gamers are hackers or tinkerers -- we like to modify our games with addons, shaders, conversions, mods, whatever else -- and Stadia did not allow that at all -- and you have another sign that Stadia failed to understand its own target market or flat-out misjudged things.

Around the Net right now many devs are straight up just now hearing about this secondhand or third-hand, apparently the big G and Stadia couldn't even bother letting devs know one on one, they had to find out via press releases and Twitter.

tl;dr Stadia got Amazon'ed.

Danikat · September 2022

I think a lack of advertising was also an issue. Stadia seems like it would really appeal to new or casual gamers who want to play more than just mobile games but can't or don't want to commit to buying expensive dedicated hardware to run them. I think the next cheapest option is a Switch Lite at about £180, which is pretty cheap for a console, but still a lot more than using whatever device/s you already have. (These types of gamers are also less likely to worry about things like perfect latency, framerate, being able to mod games etc.)

But it didn't seem to get much advertising that would reach the general public (at least not in the UK or online, maybe there was more in the USA or other places) and it seemed like the only people who even knew it existed were serious gamers who heard about it via dedicated gaming news sites - aka people who would already have other options and would therefore be harder to convince.

Then yeah, add in the price of the games themselves (or a subscription where you lose access to games if you stop paying) and it becomes somewhat prohibitive to that potential audience.

ghost_bg_ESO · September 2022

I do agree they didn't chose proper target group and advertisement at start.

From one point stadia users were beta testers, as it seems full refund except in-game purchases nd pro subscription will be issued by google (not by game studios) but some of them already offering free keys or atleast transfers.

Google has bigger fish to fry instead of dealing with end users
https://cloud.google.com/immersive-stream/xr/docs/locations-and-pricing

Parasaurolophus · October 2022

Stadia has done a lot of damage to this game. Transferring a large number of processes to the server side and our skills began to work worse. Maintenance work has also become once every two weeks, even when it is urgently needed.

Redguards_Revenge · October 2022

Stadia was an idea which google made to fail day one due to stupid business practices. Full price for old games? No. I can buy those games in bulk on steam.

We don't own the games. We don't have the games on our side. We are streaming the games. Google didn't want to change their plans for the market for more success and they failed. We now know that google probably won't last until 2050 because of it. There will be a point where their inflexibility will ruin them.

Google sell it to Microsoft and let them add the functionality to their Xbox game pass. Well maybe Microsoft already has their own and don't need it. It's the easiest "I WIN" for Microsoft if they had that technology because now its a subscription purchase and high quality games being streamed for a subscription no need to buy a full console. No need to pay for 70$ or 60$ full price for access to a game we don't physically own.

Let's face it most games are never released fully done anymore. Anybody buying games for 60$ to 70$ I put my hats off to you because I would never do that when I can buy games from 20 years ago that are fully finished.

Chrome will be on the list of googles graveyard.

allup8679 · October 2022

I played on Stadia after my PS4 died. I rarely had issues with lag and was able to do the content I had access to. There's a lot of unnecessary hate.

A far as my account goes, I'm kind of stuck in no man's land with wanting to have all of the gear, mats, and gold but not wanting to get a stronger pc.

LukosCreyden · October 2022

Goodbye Stadia.

I am sure the 4 people who used you to play eso and had no alternative (better) platform to play on shall be very sad.

anadandy · October 2022

[snip] I have a lot of people in my guild that came on from Stadia and they're good people who really enjoyed the game, and had an accessible way to play it. Now many of them are losing everything they worked for (talking 1000+ hours) because their only option is get a PC or start over on console.

Yeah, Google sucks and maybe the move to Stadia hurt ESO somehow (frankly, I've always seen this as the most convenient scapegoat for ESO issues, like how people blamed the console release for everything when that happened). But the "3 guys who played Stadia" meme is tired. Find your humanity.

[edited for baiting]

TechMaybeHic · October 2022

anadandy wrote: »

[snip] I have a lot of people in my guild that came on from Stadia and they're good people who really enjoyed the game, and had an accessible way to play it. Now many of them are losing everything they worked for (talking 1000+ hours) because their only option is get a PC or start over on console.

Yeah, Google sucks and maybe the move to Stadia hurt ESO somehow (frankly, I've always seen this as the most convenient scapegoat for ESO issues, like how people blamed the console release for everything when that happened). But the "3 guys who played Stadia" meme is tired. Find your humanity.

You should probably not take jokes about Stadia personally. Certainly wouldn't think defending Stadia which is Google would be the way to go. It's really Google and Stadia that have created the problem you are concerned about. Rather than market and slowly grow from a good foundation; they spent a lot of cash to try and force out competitors by buying the rights to exclusively stream people's favorite games, so rather than have people discover their option on its own merit like for travelling away from your PC or better ping because having a direct pipe to the game server, it was more players who had no other options.

I know I was hopeful for the technology. Still am really. Imagine if I never have to buy another PC with best video cards for $1k or whatever they jump to whenever there's a chip shortage. But I saw GeForce Now and it was really good, and they got forced out while Google was throwing money around. Tried Stadia and it was OK but not nearly as good with lower capped frame rates and no add-ons.

TLDR is Google forced an inferior product and then yanked it. They cause the vitriol they receive.

[edited to remove quote]

UnabashedlyHonest · October 2022

Stadia always reminded me of those calculator wrist watches from the early 80's. Sure, it's neat, but how functional is it really? When there are so many better options to play the game, why not play on PC or even a gamebox so they don't have to dumb down the game so much to cater to a small number of people?

thedocbwarren · October 2022

Stadia was ok, I used now and then when I was away with my super low spec Dell laptop (great for travel.) It did feel like it was a beta and never fully tested out before called GA. I liked GFN a lot more when playing ESO personally as it performed well. I wasn't a fan of the license model or subscription service. I didn't play much of anything on it other than ESO. I mostly play client-based on Mac or PC but Stadia was a cool alternative. I liked the controller but never felt used to it. The controller killed the screen/keyboard lag I got almost every time I played on Stadia.

I'll miss it only for the ease when I'm away or don't want to bring my expense laptop. It did have a long way to go to be as smooth as local but I did use it.

Anyway, I hope the option shows up on some other platform. I hope not Amazon only as I don't want to buy another subscription unless this comes with Prime or something as I already own.

Fermian · October 2022

For eso stadia was a free to play streaming option. I enjoyed it but, it worked without issues. But the capped fps and low viewing distance was a reason for me to stop playing.

doabhi · October 2022

I'm actually hoping that ZOS will claw back some usefulness out of the stadia build and instead offer it as an option for the Steam Deck/Linux since the work is already done, even though it works okay using Proton, this move would likely give it the steam deck verified badge.

Xenite · October 2022

People need to stop investing in and using newer Google services and devices, It's a graveyard of tech services and hardware.

Outside of a few flagship products it's just asking to get burned.

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Google is a lot like Electronic Arts, if something isn't a large hit out of the gate it gets abandoned quickly.

Cosmo_Nova · October 2022

Damn, no more being able to do my endeavors in the bathroom at work :(

That's about all i used or cared about Stadia for, though.

Psiion · October 2022

Greetings all,

After editing and removing some posts that violated the Forum's Community Rules, we would like to leave a reminder that while we welcome everyone sharing their thoughts, we do not allow the Bashing of individuals, groups, or other companies on our forums. The Community Rules are in place to ensure the Forums stay a constructive and welcoming place for discussion.

Moving forward, please keep the Community Rules in mind.

brandon · October 2022

The universe just doesn't want me to play ESO I guess. It has been an absolute struggle for me to play with any consistency since the initial release and it just makes me sad.

The original laptop I had, which I'd owned pre-2014 release got to a point where it couldn't handle the game any longer.

Got an actual gaming laptop after that, which I was led to believe would be a longterm solution; I'm not the most computer/laptop spec knowledgeable person myself so I rely on those who are. It did last a year or so before the Homestead update proved too much for it, and I think updates were eventually cutoff altogether on it too.

Got a computer around that time, which couldn't run the game from the get-go. Following all that it led to a 2-3 year hiatus from ESO until Stadia came out. Jumped at the chance to be able to play it again.

These past couple years have been full of highs and lows. Months where I could play the game relatively fine (mostly during the winter months), and then there'd be months (whenever it got warm) where my internet would be so bad as to make the game unplayable. Still don't know what to do to fix my crappy internet, no matter what solutions we've tried. It's depressing really. So even with Stadia, I've only managed to play the game for like half the time since Stadia's release.

I've finally been able to get some actual game time in again recently with the weather cooling off again, and now here we are only a couple weeks later and they announce Stadia's officially dead in a few months time. Once it's officially gone, I don't know how long it'll be before I'm able to get back in the game; been trying to save up for a good longlasting PC for years and some emergency always pops up and eats up any savings I had.

Bernold · October 2022

I am one of the Stadia players saddened by the news that the service is stopping.
With the lack of a decent PC, and not having the funds to purchase a new one, and after ESO left GeForce Now, Stadia was my only means of playing this game.

Seems like I have to pause my stay in Tamriel until ESO returns to GFN. Bless you all, keep the place tidy until my return.

TechMaybeHic · October 2022

For those struggling with a PC; there is ShadowPC out there that can run the game now but I feel like for the cost; you could finance your own PC over 2 or 3 years.

At any rate; you have a couple months or so. I imagine ZOS will come up with a plan either with Luna or Microsoft's stream service

HerrKeinTipp_MrNoTip · October 2022

tmbrinks wrote: »

Does this mean we'll be able to have timely bug-fix patches for PC? Since the "2-week Stadia certification time" can't be used as an excuse anymore?

Yay! Back to weekly..if not twice weekly downtime during main pacific play time. So happy about the death of this service that the pacific couldn't get allowing that.

barney2525 · October 2022

I thought Stadia was a character in a Star Wars movie

SpiderCultist · October 2022

The hell??????

I have a lot of games purchased there (ESO amongst them and it was a good-to-have when traveling)

brandon · October 2022

SpiderCultist wrote: »

The hell??????

I have a lot of games purchased there (ESO amongst them and it was a good-to-have when traveling)

They are supposedly refunding most purchases, @SpiderCultist

So there's that