Google Stadia has had a slow start, the main problem is the lack of games to incite players to subscribe to the streaming service, yesterday Bussiness Insider reported what might be the reason behind that lack of games in the service, it appears that all comes down to money.
It’s a statement we heard echoed by several prominent indie developers and two publishing executives we spoke with for this piece.
“It’s that there isn’t enough money there,” one of the publishing executives we spoke with said. The offer was apparently “so low” that it wasn’t even part of the conversation.
The “incentive” isn’t solely financial, but it’s the main part of the equation.
“When we’re looking at these types of deals,” another prominent indie developer said, “We’re looking at ‘Is this enough money where we have the resources to make what we want, or is this an exclusivity deal that gives us security?”
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai introduced Stadia at GDC 2019, the service launched a few months ago, but there are not enough games to attract players to pay a monthly subscription. Business Reports might be very accurate considering how few indie games are featured in Stadia, only four of the twenty-eight being offered are indie. Ironically indie developers and publishers might be what a new cloud gaming service needs to attract players, a vast library of games ready to be played.
Putting that aside, an interesting streaming war has started, Google, NVIDIA, Microsoft and Sony are trying to beat each other in order to reach those 2 billion gamers around the world. xCloud seems like the biggest competitor at the moment, Stadia and GeForce NOW are a step behind due to their own mistakes.
Phil Spencer motivating message to the Xbox Team after Stadia’s announcement was leaked, Microsoft is taking Google seriously and has decided that consoles would not allow Microsoft to reach all players in the world, so Xbox is preparing for a future where streaming services are the way to play.
Today we saw a big tech competitor enter the gaming market, and frame the necessary ingredients for success as Content, Community and Cloud. There were no big surprises in their announcement although I was impressed by their leveraging of YouTube, the use of Google Assistant and the new WiFi controller.
But I want get back to us, there has been really good work to get us to the position where we are poised to compete for 2 billion gamers across the planet. Said Phil Spencer to the Xbox Team.
Google might be very confident with their plans for the Stadia, suggested by how seriously are taken the service might surprise us all in the next months with some exclusive publishers.
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