A Stadia that resembled Google’s original pitch could have had a major impact on the industry.
Now to be clear, I’m not talking about laughably pie-in-the-sky promises like “negative latency.”
You need a javascript enabled web app to watch videos.
Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?
As of late 2021, Googleboasted that more than 20 games in totalincluded one or more of these features.
In concept, at least, these were great ideas.
YouTube streamers could invite viewers to jump right into the game and play alongside or against them.
In theory, you could organize tournaments or create massive and asynchronous multiplayer experiences.
That also presented the obvious problem: the more popular the streamer, the bigger the queue.
No one wants to wait behind 1000 other people just to play in a four-player session of Borderlands 3.
Viewers could vote on meaningful choices in games and the streamer would live by what the audience suggested.
The inconsistency itself dooms the feature to fail.
This was exacerbated by the lack of first-party development on Stadia.
Stadia had no first-party development, just vague notions that we would get exclusive games eventually.
Those concepts were strong, and Stadia presented a vision for the future of gaming that was compelling.
But those concepts are still viable, smart, and worth pursuing.
But other platforms can and should pick up the slack and work to implement those and similarly ambitious concepts.
Got a news tip or want to contact us directly?
