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Google’s Stadia platform has been officially available for a year, and a lot has happened during that time. The library has grown, features have been added and finally, it seems people are starting to see the value. And after? Stadia vice president John Justice had a few things to say about it, including free games and where he sees platform customers.
Talk to The edgeJustice took some time on the platform’s anniversary to discuss Stadia’s position and what will follow. The entire article is a great read (and so is our year-long review of Kyle Bradshaw’s Stadia), but here are the main highlights of what Justice had to say.
Many more free games are coming
Other titles will follow Destiny 2
As of today, Destiny 2 is 100% free to play on Stadia. You don’t need to pay for the game or for a Stadia Pro membership. Combine that at no cost to the hardware, and you’ve got an extremely accessible way to access free games.
Going forward, Stadia Vice President John Justice has said that “many” more free-to-play games are on the way, although there is no timeline associated with that statement. It’s a bit of a shame that we don’t know what’s coming up, but it’s great to see Google opening the doors to this. After all, some of the world’s most popular games are free, but few of them are on Stadia. It would be great to see hits like Fortnite, Apex Legends, Genshin Impact, Warframe, Brawlhalla or Call Of Duty: Warzone land on Stadia. At this point, it certainly looks like it’s happening.
Google wants to promote Stadia as “ free and accessible ”
A change from last year’s futuristic pitch
When it was announced in early 2019, Google gave the platform a big push, offering things that a traditional gaming console could never do. Things like Stream Connect, which lets you see another player’s point of view, or direct streaming to YouTube. Google made a lot of promises but failed to keep many. One of its biggest promises, however, was that Stadia would offer users a free console in the cloud, and it certainly happened.
Justice says the free nature of Stadia is “very compelling” to a lot of people. Its main argument for why people should play on Stadia is that it is “free and accessible”. Personally, this is an argument with which I agree. Consoles can last for years, but spending hundreds of dollars may not make sense for gamers who only pick up a handful of games a year. Justice also points out that massive games like Cyberpunk 2077 don’t need to be uploaded to Stadia, which even next-gen consoles still have to handle. Heck, the game literally requires two discs on PS5.
Stadia is free. The platform is free, the multiplayer is free, you can get games as you want. For a lot of people, this is very convincing.
This goal also aligns with Stadia’s main focus at the moment, which Justice says is to expand the library. Google isn’t focusing so much on adding new features as it is bringing more games to Stadia for gamers to spend their time on. Since this is one of the main complaints of many, it is a laudable goal! However, the past year has seen a lot of progress on new features, so it’s clear Google is working on both projects.
Stadia will not adopt the ‘Netflix’ model
Like it or not, Stadia won’t become xCloud or Luna
Many people have complained that Google Stadia does not offer an all-you-can-eat game library for its $ 10 monthly fee like xCloud or Luna, although Stadia Pro currently offers 35 games to subscribers and has offered almost double that number. over the past year. Either way, things aren’t changing anytime soon.
Justice says Google is not currently exploring business models that would allow Stadia to function like xCloud or Luna. The current business model will remain for the foreseeable future.
We have seen that the best goal from us that resonated with the players was convenience. Not having to buy expensive equipment is very valuable to people. We have always seen that the ability to buy a la carte or get games through a subscription is very important. People want choices – some people want to buy a game, play it, and play it without a subscription.
When it comes to fairness, Stadia sort of offers the best of both worlds. You can buy games if you want, but you can also get a large library for free if you pay monthly, and that library only gets bigger every month.
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