Stadia AMA on Reddit July 18th: What We Have Learned So Far

There's been a ton of buzz around the new Stadia subscription-based game-streaming service by Google. And while streaming games isn't a new concept (Nvidia had a service, Playstation Now has one, and early founders like Parsec had a streaming service as well) -- what is new is the biggest tech names (and a retailer) getting into the game.

The race has been on for years now, with Google's Stadia product leading the pack. Microsoft announced a streaming service named XCloud that we're waiting to hear more about which was supposed to be released in 2019 last we heard, and Amazon is in the action as well with a service they say will do the same and is set for release sometime in 2020. And like Betamax versus VHS, or more recently HDDVD versus Bluray, it isn't always the best product that wins. Sometimes being first to market is enough to give a company a stranglehold on market share.

If you're unfamiliar with Stadia - just think of it like the Netflix of video games. The subscription works more like Audible - where you pay a monthly fee and get access to a bunch of free content (games) and can purchase games to play on the platform. The larger offering (see: more expensive) comes with a ton of free games but those go away if you cancel. Any games you purchase, however, are yours via Stadia regardless of whether you have a subscription or not. But what matters about Stadia, what makes it revolutionary (if the promises made hold true) is that by playing your game via a really really long cord (the internet) you can actually swap devices and pick up right where you left off as if you just paused the game, unplugged your console, replugged it back in on a different TV, PC, or smart phone, and suddenly (instantaneously) you're back in the same game as if you just hit pause.

The promise of being able to seamlessly transition from one device to another to play the same game is big. And that isn't the only benefit. Because the hardware is being upgraded constantly, the "system" is also constantly being improved -- so purchasing a Stadia subscription slowly becomes better and better as the hardware in the server rooms is upgraded. This is extremely appealing to Game Developers, who are often constrained by the processing power, speed, or graphics of a given system.

And yet another attractive principal that Stadia brings to the table is the integration with YouTube. Players will be able to watch their favorite YouTube gamer playing an instance of a game in Stadia, and join THAT GAME with that player. And players browsing youtube gameplay videos while deciding if they want to buy a game, can go to the official Game Developer's page to actually PLAY an instance of the game directly.

But enough about what Stadia COULD be, here's what we learned in the AMA:

• There will be a selection of free-to-play games available in the subscription
• “At launch you’ll be able to manage your friends list, create parties and use platform-level voice chat. And that’s just the beginning. We also have a healthy pipeline of social features going forward."
• We will see the UI in November at launch and not sooner
• There will be no free games on Stadia base. not even F2P games
• On what Stadia feature he's most proud of: “Me playing Assassin’s Creed on my son’s dirt-cheap Chromebook. It almost feels like a glitch in the Matrix…. It can’t be happening… but wait… it works!”
• On Steam partnership: "Great question! My PR guy will kill me...we’re always evaluating our options to make Stadia a better place for the gamers :)"
• On what feature of Stadia will change the gaming landscape: "I think, the biggest is the fact that game developers don’t have to limit their creativity to whatever fits in a little black box under your TV. Since games will be running in the Cloud, we expect to see new games at scale never seen before..."
• Similar to other platforms, Stadia will have an achievement system with badges and more
• On if Stadia gets discontinued, what happens to the games someone bought: "We get this a lot. I hear you. Moving to the cloud is scary. I felt the same way when music was transitioning from files to streaming. I still have all my old CDs in the garage… although it's hard to find a CD player these days :) The same happened to Movies and Photos and my Docs and other files… And it’s great! Games are no different. Eventually all of our games will be safely in the cloud too and we'll feel great about it. We’ve been investing a ton in tech, infrastructure and partnerships over the past few years. Nothing in life is certain, but we’re committed to making Stadia a success. The games you buy on Stadia are yours to play. From day one we’ll support Takeout, so that you can download your game metadata, including saves if you want to. Of course, it’s ok to doubt my words. Theres nothing I can say now to make you believe if you don't. But what we can do is to launch the service and continue investing in it for years to come. Exactly how we've been doing with gMail, Docs, Music, Movies and Photos. That’s exactly what we’re committed to."
• On sharing game libraries: "Yes, we’ll enable Family Sharing early next year. Working on it, but won’t be ready by November -- need a bit more time. At launch we’ll have Parental Dashboard to give parents control over their kid’s experience."
• On using Stadia with a data capped internet plan: "I can’t predict the future, but I’ve seen that ISPs adapted in the past - I saw it when I was at YouTube - and we’d expect that to continue. For players concerned about data usage we’ll definitely have some tools in the Stadia app to manage your data usage to adapt to your unique data situation, but I’m not sure if that will be on day one or a bit later. There's a lot of great ISPs offering plans with 100s of mbps or even gigabits and no caps. We're seeing different progress in different countries and are certainly expecting ISPs to continually improve the services."
• There will be a headphone jack on the Stadia controller but will not support Bluetooth audio at launch. Computers and Pixel phones will be able to use Bluetooth headsets with Stadia.
• On Stadia coming to non-Pixel mobile devices: “We’re aiming to get more devices supported next year. I really want to have Stadia gameplay on every mobile device, across Android and iOS at some point. But it's a hard technical challenge and will take us time. Just need to start somewhere. So we're starting with the device we know the best and can provide an optimal experience - our latest Pixel phones.”
• On cross-play: "We love cross-platform play and are working to get it with every game we can. Both cross-play and cross-progression are big priorities for us. Enabling both cross-play and cross-progression is up to each developer and publisher, but we’re doing everything we can to make it happen."
• The next Stadia Connect presentation happening "sooner than you think....."