Google still has no idea how to launch Stadia

Yesterday, the Google Stadia Connect feed has fallen flat and Google will have to find a way to do it better if it wants anyone to stay interested in the service.

The event was focused on games, and only games, which meant that Google was presenting a series of game trailers that we already knew existed. This game do you want to play? Why not buy it for a streaming service that you still can not get!

Google is going to have a hard time selling people on Stadia this year, and this latest misstep is not going to make things any easier.

How do you launch Google Stadia?

It's a good question, and I do not have a good answer. The value of Google Stadia is not in the games you play, but in the way you play them. And Google tried to explain these details during its first announcement, but many of these details looked like word salad and it was hard to understand exactly what the company sells and why people would like it on a console traditional. Asking someone to understand the price structure or even the general details of Stadia is not an easy task.

The basic pitch is that you can enjoy games with stunning graphics, no download or extended patch, and no need to buy a PC or console. You will be able to play all the games you buy on Stadia on many of your existing devices, such as your laptop, smartphone or tablet, provided you also have a fast internet connection. The product that Stadia sells is more or less freedom. The service, if it works as advertised, will do a lot of cool things.

Of course, you actually make need to buy a package to use the service at launch, so that it blurs a little things. The ability to simply buy the service, or even play Stadia games with inferior images without having to pay for the service, will arrive later.

This is a difficult marketing challenge because we are so used to considering mandatory Internet connections as a bad thing, which limits the way we can play our games. Google is now trying to sell us this requirement as a service. It's presented as a good thing, a step forward. But it will take some reprogramming for players to engage, especially when the initial cost of entry is $ 129.99.

The biggest enemy of Stadia could be YouTube

And then there's the fact that many people could not even look at yesterday's presentation in standard resolutions without hiccups or crushes. Google owns YouTube and this product has been around for years. If Google can not even stream video with less than promising quality for Stadia, what hope does it have to succeed in delivering games?

The counter-argument is that Stadia was designed for this purpose, and that it is a new product, which means that it does not have the technological debt or trade-offs that often accompany older services like YouTube. However, it is difficult to understand this nuance when you display poor performance on a service while trying to convince people that this new service for which you are asking them to pay will be able to do it well. And people have noticed.

Reassure people that the service will work as advertised and explain how, as simply as possible, is a huge challenge. What Stadia is trying to do is complicated, and other companies have tried unsuccessfully to keep game play as a service. None of them, however, has the infrastructure and resources of Google. But it's a tough argument against players before they can try the service themselves. This is the marketing challenge of Stadia, and so far, Google has failed miserably.

Games are important – the service can not survive without them – but focusing on the games for now does not help players understand. Why they should pay for the stadiums. Showing announced game sequences without giving any release date for any of them on Stadia gives the impression that the service is already an old story.

And for a service that charges a monthly fee, in addition to charging you the full price for games that will only work on Stadia, the list of games is just not so great. It sounds like a dangerous investment right now.

And that's the kind of fear that Google has to fight, especially when its competitors are talking about launching streaming services that make more sense to the players. This is an excellent comment on the Google Stadia feed that shows why Microsoft is in a position as good as Google when it comes to streaming:

Microsoft's option to use free streaming of your home console with games you already have interests me a lot more. I do not need to buy a game on a platform without history and I also know that if the streaming platform dies, I still have a device with which I can play offline, for example . If Stadia ceases to exist, what do you get? You are also completely dependent on the platform. In the worst case with Microsoft, I have to enter a better signal strength zone or just go home. With Google, if the problem arises, I can not do anything else.

Google Stadia currently offers a limited number of games with few reliable release dates. In addition, Google has always offered services that do not have the appeal. I can still play Xbox 360 games even though Microsoft no longer actively supports the platform, but Stadia disappears completely if Google leaves it behind.

The streaming service options from Microsoft, and probably Sony, will be much stronger if they can offer streaming for titles that also work like traditional games without an Internet connection. They both know how to play this game, but Google is struggling to communicate the effectiveness of its own offer.

Maybe finding customers is not yet the goal

It's possible there's still no way to really sell people on Stadia, and the $ 129.99 initial offer available this year can limit the number of people on the service while Google tests the numbers. performance and server load. Showing games at this point can make Google ridiculous, or even ill-prepared for launch, but I'm not sure that there is anything else to do before everyone can try the service for free in 2020.

This is the real challenge: to get people to try it and make sure they like what they see enough to keep paying. 2019 is perhaps just a beta test and Google focuses primarily on spreading the name and idea rather than worry about paying customers. The company has the money and the sick who can choose the long way to success.

Google Stadia is an interesting service with many potential benefits, but focusing on non-exclusive games gives the impression that Google has nothing else to talk about. Meanwhile, discussions about possible disadvantages dominate social media. There is a good way to promote Google Stadia, but yesterday's presentation was not part of it.