Google Cloud’s absolutely wild “Developer Cheat Sheet.” Stadia now belongs on this list somewhere.
Google Cloud’s absolutely wild “Developer Cheat Sheet.” Stadia now belongs on this list somewhere. Credit: Google
Stadia’s pivot to cloud gaming was definitely not part of the original plan. Stadia is a failing service that dramatically undershot Google sales estimates, and many of Google’s promises made three years ago at Stadia’s unveiling have not come true. Pitching Stadia as a Google Cloud service for other businesses is definitely a “plan B” and somewhat of a soft shutdown for the consumer service. The Business Insider report that broke the news of Stadia’s Google Cloud transition said the consumer platform was being “deprioritized” and that only “about 20 percent” of the Stadia team’s focus was still on “Stadia,” the consumer platform.
Hitching Stadia’s wagon to Google Cloud comes with its own set of problems. Google’s Cloud division is in a distant third place behind Microsoft and Amazon, with Canalys laying out the market as 7 percent Google Cloud, 19 percent Microsoft Azure, and 32 percent AWS. Google Cloud is not a profitable service, despite 45 percent year-over-year revenue growth putting it on pace for $20 billion in revenue this year. It loses about $700 million every quarter.
In the last earnings call in February, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said Google was taking a “longer-term path to profitability for Google Cloud,” and we’re starting to see a bit of that “profitability” plan. Step one was to lay off about 100 people on the support staff (Google apparently did this in the worst way possible, letting some employees find out they were fired via media reports). Step two is to raise prices, with some storage options jumping 50 percent in October.
Stadia’s weirdly empty account-free demo page. It doesn’t quite work yet but should in “the coming weeks.”
Credit: Ron Amadeo
Stadia’s weirdly empty account-free demo page. It doesn’t quite work yet but should in “the coming weeks.” Credit: Ron Amadeo
In other Stadia news from the keynote, Google is taking down some of the barriers it has erected around the Stadia in the hopes that more people will try it. You’ll soon be able to browse the store without making a Stadia account, which might entice some window shoppers. Stadia has had free trials of games before, but now developers can provide time-limited demos to people more easily than ever before.
Risk of Rain 2 is the first game to support this with a one-hour free trial, which is now live if you have a (free) Stadia account. Google says the account-free access will roll out “in the coming weeks,” and once it does, you’ll theoretically be able to send someone a link to that demo, and in about one click, they’ll be playing Stadia. Quick, no-hassle trials feel like a real advantage for cloud gaming, and it’s a wonder Google has taken this long to embrace them.