I agree. If Google was really serious about Stadia, they should have invested in first-party and second-party dev studios to show off the platform (instead of relying on disinterest third parties to port their old games). They should also subsidize the service (and the games) and lose money on it while they educate the public on the benefits of cloud gaming. And yes, they should also forge deeper relationships with third-party developers and sign license deals to maybe turn this into an Xbox-GamePass-Type service (i.e. Netflix for games), or just experiment with other types of business models (maybe something like Audible, where subscription gets you one free game a month).
But they did none of it. The focused on the technology with no thought on the value prop and the business and consequently decided on the easisest and worst model where the customer pays full price for old games. Typical Google.
I’m not a huge fan of it either and I agree with some of your points, but:
1. They are investing in first-party studios, but I’m not sure about second-party
2. Most of the launch games available to Founders are up to 50% off and included 2 free games (although that’s just like Free Games with Gold so I wouldn’t necessarily say it sets them apart)
3. They’ve worked with other studios getting their games on Stadia. For example, they sent engineers to Bungie for 6 months to help port Destiny 2.
4. It took MSFT years to develop Game Pass and the relationships with the developers to do so
5. Not many, if any, AAA companies are going to agree to put their new game on a subscription service, which is why Game Pass only has old games and Microsoft’s first-party games (although there might be a couple of exceptions)
6. It’s the developers that are choosing to sell the games for full price. Google definitely could eat some of the cost though
Good arguments. We'll have to see how serious they are about Stadia. I don't have a lot of faith in them. But I hope to be proven wrong.
The launch was a disaster in that there is no excitement about the platform. I like their statements on first-party development, but quality first-party games should have been at launch and ideally platform sellers.
Though I referenced Microsoft, Microsoft isn't doing a great job either. They have bungled the XboxOne launch and somehow ended up with almost no first-party games. They have certainly regressed since the Xbox360.
>For example, they sent engineers to Bungie for 6 months to help port Destiny 2.
Developer relations is something that Google is actually pretty good at. They make their engineering resources available to their partners (even outside of Stadia). I worked with them when we moved to GCP. That's not the issue. Their technology isn't the issue. Their engineering talent and technology is top-notch.
The issue is the commercial, marketing and business side. They also have a big problem with dealing with customers directly. Their natural inclination is to be a platform. That's great for search, cloud, YouTube (though they should be creating a catalogue of high-quality content), but not great for things like phones, and in this case, Stadia.
>Not many, if any, AAA companies are going to agree to put their new game on a subscription service
Agreed. Exclusivity is very expensive. You won't get RDR2 or MK11 at launch in your subscription service. Even having AAA publishers supporting a marginal platform at all will be a challenge (if they can't move units on your platform, why bother supporting it?). That's why you can't rely on those publishers. They need to be building their own library of first and second party games.
> They have bungled the XboxOne launch and somehow ended up with almost no first-party games.
Two very different issues, and both of which are arguably "solved" at this point.
1. Long tail sales is on par for Xbox One with where they should be at, at this point in the generation.
2. Microsoft divested several studios prior to the Xbox One. Such as the aforementioned Bungie which was a first party developer for the Xbox 360, and Epic which was a strong "second party" developer. It's taken them a bit for the spin-ups of their replacements to match their former brethren's output levels (343 and The Coalition, respectively), and Microsoft has also invested heavily into acquisitions in recent years, adding a bunch of interesting heavy hitters (such as Obsidian, inXile), and some interesting oddballs (such as Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Compulsion). It will take a short while for those new first parties' power to be felt in the Xbox space, but no other console manufacturer has invested as much in the first and second party development as Microsoft has recently. The only thing watering that down is that Microsoft (for very good reason) still believes the PC to be their first and oldest console, and "first party exclusives" are getting released to Windows 10 and now (again) Steam simultaneously with Xbox releases.
(I think it says a lot that Microsoft let Bungie go. They didn't try to kill the golden goose. It's made the Xbox One a bit slower to catch up to some of the highs that the 360 saw with Halo 1 and Halo 2, but maybe it's so much the better for the industry as a whole that Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 haven't been Xbox Exclusives.)
But they did none of it. The focused on the technology with no thought on the value prop and the business and consequently decided on the easisest and worst model where the customer pays full price for old games. Typical Google.