Google Stadia has been out for a couple months now, and if you signed up early your three month window is probably closing. It's time to keep paying or give up the service entirely. For everyone else, that means that we've had a few months of serious testing, so is Google's game streaming service really the future of gaming or just another whiffed Google product? Let's find out.
Google Stadia details
Let's talk about the premise of Stadia to start with. Instead of buying a new Xbox or a better GPU to play your games, you simply sign up for Stadia with either a free tier or a $10/mo tier that gives you higher quality streaming. Once you're signed up, you pick out your games and buy them, just like you would with any other platform. Instead of downloading anything or waiting for patches, you simply click your game after it's purchased and stream away, using either a controller or your mouse/keyboard. Cool, right?
In concept, yeah. Waiting for a 6GB patch on a Friday after work really sucks when all you want to do is kick back and start your weekend, and Stadia squashes that problem. It also takes cross-saving and playing to a whole other level, since you can play your Stadia games on your PC, then pick up right where you left off on your phone while you're on your break at work. Come home, fire up your TV, stream games there. Easy, simple, everywhere. Also cool.
Right now, though, there are a few things missing. You can only stream to Pixel phones, the free tier isn't available, and the game selection is, well, not particularly exciting if you're already invested in another platform, whether that's an Xbox, PlayStation, PC gaming, or even a Nintendo console. Many of the features that are an integral part of the platform, like achievements and Crowd Play, are still absent from the system, and that's not even addressing the major issues that we had around launch with delayed shipping and access codes. It really felt like a beta that you have to pay $10 a month for.
Fortunately, Google's given away some cool games with a Stadia Pro membership. Metro Exodus is currently available for subscribers as of this review, and Destiny 2: The Collection has been available since launch. I also picked up the Tomb Raider reboot and Rise of the Tomb Raider, which I enjoy very much, but… I already happened to own most of the free games. I actually initially got Tomb Raider for free with a Radeon HD 7850 purchase back in, I don't know, 2012? It's a really fun game, and I've played it multiple times, but that's not exactly something that's going to sway me into a new platform.
But if you don't want to spend any (extra) money, you've at least got some options to play through, even if they're not the newest titles on the block. There's nothing exclusive to Stadia at this time, however, so there's still a good chance you'll have already played anything they offer somewhere else, unless Stadia is your only platform, or you plan to go all-in and sell your Xbox and Switch. I wouldn't, but hey, you do you.
So let's talk about how well those games play.
Tomb Raider test
As I mentioned earlier, I've owned Tomb Raider for a very long time. I've played it several times, including on PC, PS3, Xbox One, and even on the NVIDIA Shield; it's not my favorite game, but I've certainly clocked some hours in and it's a classic I don't mind going back to. So of course it made the most sense to use that for my test, right?
Tomb Raider isn't a tough game to run, even if it's the Definitive Edition upgrade that launched on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and brought some visual enhancements and tweaks to make it a little prettier. Stadia shouldn't have a hard time running something that came out in 2013, right?
Well, mostly.
The game stays locked at 60fps, which is really cool. That helps keep it nice and responsive while playing, which is crucial when you're already trying to compensate for video streaming lag. But the game generally doesn't run in 4K, and its dynamic scaling seems to bounce around quite a bit, so you're more often than not getting something that falls just shy of 2K resolution. That's fine for gaming, honestly, but Tomb Raider is old. It's not demanding, and it makes you wonder where all of Stadia's horsepower is going.
You can check out the video of the gameplay test below to see it in action, which was streamed to a computer running Chrome with an Intel Core i7-7700k, NVIDIA GTX 1080, and 16GB of RAM. It's a pretty capable machine that can actually max out Tomb Raider in 4K at a solid framerate.
If you want to simply read some of the key highlights, I found that performance was generally good, but the network connectivity was still hit or miss despite being on a decent WiFi network. I'm using a first-gen eero mesh network with 300mbps download speeds from Spectrum, which should definitely be enough for Stadia. Things weren't hardwired, and I know that would improve performance, but I tried to grab an average recreation of how Stadia performs, not under perfect circumstances.
Stadia devices
That brings us to our next point. It's actually kind of hard for me to use Stadia.
No, not that it's confusing or anything, but I really don't have many devices capable of streaming games. Galaxy S10? Nope. NVIDIA Shield TV? Nope. High-end Sony TV with Android TV? Also nope.
You can only stream Stadia to a Chromecast Ultra, a Pixel devices, or a Chrome web browser. I do have Chrome, obviously, and it's free, so that keeps things open. But considering I usually sling my PC games to my TV using an NVIDIA Shield TV and don't have it connected to my TV directly at all, and I don't own a Pixel, I can only play Stadia games on my PC which can apparently run the games better than Stadia does. So, uh, that's not great.
In fact, it actually completely defeats the purpose of Stadia, unless I wanted to invest in a Pixel. (I don't.)
If you're already invested with those Google devices, and don't mind using a Chromecast Ultra or the Stadia Controller or whatever else that Google requires, then you're good, and the experience will actually probably be slightly better in a more controlled environment. But I imagine most people want Stadia to integrate into their setup, not the other way around, and that's something that Microsoft's xCloud and NVIDIA's GeForce Now seem to be doing better.
Fierce competition
Speaking of the competition, this is where things get particularly rough for Stadia. New rumors suggest that NVIDIA's GeForce Now will cost just $5 per month, which seriously undercuts Stadia's pricing and doesn't require you to purchase games. Microsoft's not charging for xCloud right now, but GamePass Ultimate costs $15 per month; it wouldn't surprise me to see Microsoft just bundle the service in with that and give you a massive, ever-growing library of games and streaming tech for that price, which I think also offers much better value than Stadia.
And if subscription costs and game rentals aren't your thing, Valve's Steam Link Anywhere is another alternative that will let you stream your entire PC library to your Android phone anywhere you have an internet connection. Use whatever controller or phone you won't, Valve doesn't care. That's what I do, and it works great, and I don't pay anything for it. Like I mentioned, my PC has enough power to run most of Stadia's games at higher resolutions and framerates as well, so I typically get a better experience, anyway.
So where's Stadia's value proposition? Honestly, I don't know. It's a hard sell for an inferior product that's so limited you'd be excused for thinking it was a 2014 Apple product.
How to fix Google Stadia
I'm not the CEO of a company, or a marketing director, or anything like that. But that's not going to stop me from going full armchair analyst and tell Google how they can fix Stadia going forward.
First up, (and this one's going to be the most controversial idea) drop the dumb Stadia name. I don't know what a Stadia is, but I can tell you that it's not a thing that people want to buy games from, if the general internet concensus is accurate. It's a completely unnecessary moniker, and one that should really only be used to talk about the technology, like with Google Assistant's Duplex features.
People don't care about buying games from PlayStation Network, or Xbox Live. To a lesser extend, that's also true about buying games from Steam, but I'm not getting into the Epic Games store debate here. People buy games from PlayStation Network because they want to play the game on their console of choice, which just so happens to be a PlayStation. People pop over to Steam to pick up a new game because they want to game on their PC. The “store” behind it really isn't relevant to all but the most enthusiastic consumers.
Drop the Stadia branding, and use what works. Google has both Chrome and Google Play, and they're both prime candidates. Pitch this new tech as a way to simply buy games that you want. Want Red Dead Redemption 2? Okay, cool, go grab it from the Chrome Store, hit play, and get started. Don't worry about buying the extra hardware, and if you'd like to pay $10 for our Chrome Gaming subscription, we'll even deliver this in 4K with 5.1 surround sound. Google's going about this all backwards, and it's crippling Stadia.
Or, since there's clearly a focus on Android, integrate this into Google Play. Want to play the aforementioned Red Dead Redemption 2 on your phone? Meet Google Play Anywhere, the new service where you buy the games you want and get access to them on all of your devices. Easy.
There are so many more viable ways to run this project, and Google's missing the mark terribly.
Worth it?
Right now? No, not at all. I was given a Buddy Pass to test out Stadia for three months, and I've got 0 interest in keeping up the sub, mostly because I can't actually use it on any of my devices besides the beefy computer that has better hardware than Stadia. It's a dead-end proposition. I don't know that I'm ever going to truly be the target audience for this service, anyway, but with the way Google's been handling it, I don't think they know what that audience is, either.
It's really cool technology, and I hope Google gets it straightened out before Microsoft knocks on their door demanding Stadia's lunch money.
I agree with most of the comments here, I can understand it is your review and it is from your perspective but I think you need to be more open minded (all reviewers should be). Not everyone has your type of setup and I can already think up of some scenarios where Stadia could fit in, for example a family with young kids who does not have a powerful computer or have a gaming console (this is me actually). In all honesty, this piece sounds more like a huge rant rather than a review because you nick pick some of the smallest things such as the name and the need to buy Google gear.
I don’t think I have ever commented on a website post. But the level of ignorance you’re showing has to be addressed and hopefully there’s people who are above you that use these comments as a performance criteria. I find it hard to believe someone who’s doing a review and commentary of a product couldn’t find the time to type “stadia definition” on google. Very simple definition: it’s a fancy (or plural, depending on context and region) word for a stadium. I hope you can see the relationship between a stadium/arena and the software used by people to engage in games against each other.
Stadia has many flaws, it works perfectly on my setup and I can play it on my phone, TV and PC; but I’ll still hold the opinion that I don’t recommend it because of the flaws it has for most people. There are so many objective, viable reasons for any reviewer to not recommend it, but not knowing what the name means and marketing stadia as a store rather than a console is very far from reasonable. I have no idea what your publishing process looks like but you and whomever is part of it need to get another set of competent eyes to review the content and avoid posting content that lines up more with a rant and less with a review.
Google didn’t “blow it”… The service is freaking amazing and unlike anything that’s fine before it. This bullshit clickbait article blew it.
No offense but the only thing you got right in the article is that you’re not a CEO, don’t know how to run a company, and you don’t know how to fix anything.
Stadia has some issues but nothing that you mentioned. You’re acting like a child crying that the toy in your happy meal wasn’t the one you wanted.
You’ve got a couple of factual inaccuracies in your story. First, achievements have been live on the platform for weeks. Second, there is a Stadia exclusive called Gylt which you also have access to for free right now.
Regarding the name, what is a Steam? How does that have anything to do with games? What is an Xbox? What does that have to do with gaming? How does Uber have anything to do with driving or Hulu have anything to do with TV or Amazon have anything to do with stores?
People come up with new brand names all the time that have nothing etymologically to do with the service they represent (you could make an argument for DirectX and … a box…) and then it catches and it becomes associated to the product and voila. That’s something of a disingenuous argument against the product. It’s fine if you don’t like it, and Stadia has many issues it needs to solve to really make it, but the name isn’t one of them.
Nonsense. I play and I will pay a subscription of 10€. TV + chromecast + chromebook and Stadia :)