While Google hasn’t offered any kind of solid numbers, it’s looking like their game streaming service, Stadia, isn’t in the best of spots. Early download numbers weren’t particularly high, and it feels like the release schedule is far slower than you’d anticipate. Google has dismissed most of these criticism, simply saying that the bold vision behind Stadia is going to take some time, but a new report seems to point to deeper issues.
Business Insider published a report of several publishers and developers who are less than impressed with Google’s handling of the service thus far. While they were all anonymous, no specific names were given, two things were consistent: a lack of monetized incentive and a lack of audience. It seems this has been a huge issue with indie games (which would explain why there’s been few indie titles on Stadia), as one “prominent” indie developer stated. Though the article also mentions this was echoed by publishing executives at bigger companies as well.
“We were approached by the Stadia team,” one prominent indie developer told Business Insider. “Usually with that kind of thing, they lead with some kind of offer that would give you an incentive to go with them. But the incentive “was kind of non-existent,” they said. “That’s the short of it.”
Whether or not Google Stadia will last or not is anyone’s guess. Google has something of a reputation of killing services quickly, there’s an entire website dedicated to Google’s graveyard of short-lived services. There’s an almost inescapable feel at times like the Stadia we have now is still in a beta, testing phase, so hopefully, Google can ramp up to something more appealing this year.
