More details about Stadia, an upcoming game streaming service developed by Google, are finally unveiled. Its short description is irresistible: experience the newest video games such as the upcoming Ghost Recon Breakpoint without getting a console or PC that costs an arm and a leg.
However, in order to actually play games using Stadia, you will have to satisfy its conditions and requirements. Despite the ambitious attempt in marketing by Google to make Stadia more popular, the question "what problem will this tackle?" is still rising. In fact, there is no guarantee that players are willing to purchase video games that they can only enjoy via a streaming service on the internet.
A good internet connection is required
Stadia is reported to be available on a range of internet speeds. However, you will need a 35Mbps connection if you want to play your games at 4K 60fps. Or at least, a 10Mbps connection is required to stream at 720p 60 fps (which is ideal for you if you only use Stadia on your tablet or smartphone).
Despite the widespread popularity of Stadia, many customers might find its requirements are too hard to satisfy. The United States has an average internet speed of 18.7Mbps (in 2017). With that connection speed, watching Netflix in HD quality is a piece of cake, but playing Stadia games at 1080p 60 fps is not an optimal option.
Another issue is that some users can only use their internet for a limited amount each month. With a limit of 1TB of internet usage, you can have approximately 65 hours of playing Stadia at 4K 60fps before running out of data - and that's is in case you don't use your internet for anything but streaming video games. That amount of time sounds significant, but it is only the total playing time of a few hours each day, which is really very common.
Stadia isn't really portable
One interesting feature that Stadia offers is the ability to play your favorite game anytime, on any device, continue from wherever you left. That's great actually. But the fact is, you can only start Stadia on different devices at your place most likely(or at least somewhere that the Wi-Fi signal is strong enough).
As we all know, public Wi-Fi is unstable. You should never rely on it to play some Doom with Stadia and expect to have an enjoyable time with high-quality graphic and no delay. That means, Stadia is much likely to be a typical PC and console gaming (Nintendo Switch excluded) and will be used at home for most of the time.
If you want to stream with Stadia, you have to buy your games first
It is required that you need to buy your own game if you want to play it using Stadia, even with the $10 per month Stadia's Pro plan. Despite the promises from Google that there will be discounts for Pro users, we still don't know how good these discounts will be.
Good news for the games industry is that Google doesn't seem to apply a Spotify-style monetization system to its upcoming project. More specifically, developers will not be paid based on how many times users opened their titles, or on how many hours players spent with their games (in fact, several devs was really concerned about this when Google introduced Stadia). However, it unquestionably makes Stadia a less appealing alternative service for users.
Some people are questioning about our few rights over the products we purchase via platforms like Steam, but Stadia's even trips off more ownership rights from us. Through Stadia, every game will turn into an online-only title even though it's designed to be a singleplayer one. It's also scary to think about the worse scenario where Google shut down its service. What would happen to our Stadia library? Let's just take a look at one service that was terminated recently by Google - Google Plus itself!
Netflix and Spotify business is appealing due to the unlimited access they offer with a monthly fee. If you already had a game library for yourself, would you buy another Stadia version of your owned titles on Steam or consoles?
Mobile is now the popular platform for some of the most well-known games
Mobile users have seen several popular titles got their own mobile versions such as Hearthstone, Fortnite, PUBG and even League of Legends. That also means players can enjoy the most popular games in the world using their affordable devices. They no longer need a super PC or laptop to take part in the gaming community.
Theoretically, it's would be ideal for Stadia if its users, for some reasons, want to play games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey or Rage 2 with the highest settings enabled, doesn't mind about portability, got their TV and other devices connected to an acceptable internet connection with a decent Wi-Fi signal (or even better, got all their devices wired with ethernet), and will not spend money on any hardware for gaming purpose except a controller, but totally agree on purchasing a membership that costs $10 each month for game discounts and 4K streaming.
Like what happened with Steam Machines developed by Valve, it's really hard to find a reasonable size market for Stadia.
A more possible, but less common Stadia user could be a player who already has a PC with old hardware, and usually use it to play games like CS:GO, but sometimes decides to spend his free time on graphically-intensive titles that their computer cannot handle, like Metro Exodus. Assuming that Stadia will work as expected, the service could find a niche there, but that's all about it.
However, Stadia hasn't been officially released, so what you just read is actually my speculation. Maybe there is a large number of people who willing to consume gigs of data to play NBA 2K or Final Fantasy 15 via Chrome, an unexploited market that we hardly know about because no developer can offer a streaming service that is good enough to do that.
We shall know the fate of Stadia soon enough. But what makes me doubt is the requirements on internet speed and data usage, the necessity to be online all the time, and the possibility of delay and quality loss when there is trouble with the internet connection (how Stadia will perform if another guy starts watching Netflix in the next room?).
Stadia seems to offer a cheaper experience, but the rising question is that is it going to provide a better one?
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