Today Google
released the price and the release date for its gaming platform, Stadia.
According to the release, no matter which version of Stadia you choose, you
will still need to pay a significant proportion of games on the platform (for
Stadia Pro subscribers, they have free access to some games; for Stadia Base
users, they have to pay all the games). Some people are comparing Stadia with
Netflix and say Stadia is the gaming version of Netflix. In some ways, they are
correct. By using Stadia, people no longer need to download the games they want
to play, worry about their hardware, they can immediately start playing the
games whenever they want to play, just like people watching films on Netflix.
However, even if people subscribe the Pro version which will cost $9.99 per
month (to be honest, this is relatively cheap, especially after Apple
announcing its $1000 monitor stand), why will they still need to pay for the
games? Why doesn't Google offer free games to its Pro subscribers, though the
Pro subscribers will get some discounts when they purchase some certain games?
In my opinion, this
may be caused by two side factors. For Google, if they offer free access to all
games for its Pro subscribers, they have to pay for the game providers. Some
games are very expensive, since the production costs are high; Google doubts if
it can collect enough profits to pay for the game providers to make them
continue providing games and attract more game developers. For game developers,
receiving payment from Google may not be ideal. At this moment, game providers
are uncertain about how much Google is able and willing to pay. Although this
might increase the quantity, this would reduce the margin significantly, which
may not be able to be compensated by the boosted quantity. The strategy that
Google chooses at this moment may indicate that both Google and the game
providers are not so confident. I think if Google totally believed its gaming
platform, Stadia, would succeed, Google would increase the subscription fees
for the Pro version much above the current level (maybe $35 or even higher),
guaranteed some certain payment levels for its game providers (which means if
the game providers' revenues received are below the guaranteed level, they will
receive compensations from Google).
At this moment, I am
very excited about Google releasing Stadia. I am not excited about the games I
can get instant access to games, I am excited because I can see that in the
future, people will work on the cloud and no longer need to depend on the hardware
they have. People can get access to a simple Windows desktop and use Microsoft
Office on a Huawei smartphone (maybe other smartphones also have a similar
feature, but I personally only use this feature on a Huawei smartphone); in the future, people may be able to do any kind
of work via any kind of console they have access to. I am looking forward to
seeing this future coming.
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