Thread by @timsoret

Google's Stadia thread:
Analysis, hopes & worries from a game developer

Inevitably, the traditional business model of games is going to evolve, just like music & cinema.

Gaming was one of the first cultural industry to go through dematerialization with Steam in 2003. So far, mainstream gaming is still on 2003's tech, while music & movies progressed.

Movies & music are immediately enjoyable anywhere today. For games we still have to:

- get the right hardware
- make enough space
- buy disc / long downloads
- lengthy installations
- regular patches

So today, we can't instantly play most games.

Sure, PlayStation Now, OnLive & Shadow exist.
The tech is viable, it works.

Google doesn't bring anything new to the table there technically. But for some reason, these platforms aren't as ubiquitous as Amazon Prime, Netflix or Spotify in their respective domains.

That said I think Google has a shot at it.
YouTube as a game launcher is an insanely large friction-less platform for game developers.

Cloud computing also has an insane amount of advantages, and some of which aren't obvious, (and weren't pushed by Google for some reasons).

1 • HARDWARE INDEPENDENCE
It impacts gaming way more than you think.

First, it's going kill the slow console cycle, which is basically a threshold on hardware progress. Ideally, with the cloud, the state-of-the-art would always be the default. I made a dumb graph to visualize:

For game developers:

- A single platform (servers) to develop for, and deploy everywhere
- Live patching & updating
- Automatic cross-platform multiplayer
- Automatic split-screen multiplayer
- Unhackable multiplayer

Millions spared.
Easier development.
More ambitious games.

An interesting bonus is ecological:

When you don't use it, your gaming hardware is wasted computational power that could contribute. It's ecologically taxing to manufacture & dispatch 100M consoles, when the vast majority of them are idle or turned off when you work / sleep.

Servers are way more efficient, as their power is constantly redirected where needed.

No need for 100M hardware units to serve 100M players. I'm sure 20-30M units wisely allocated depending on load & timezones would do the job. Also, servers often run on clean energy.

However, hardware/content decoupling is also a lot of concerns:

- Less control over the context on how your game is enjoyed (can all games really be enjoyed anywhere, on any platform?)

- The overabundance & ultra-accessibility of games will lead to massive devaluation.

Whether we opt for ad-based F2P model, or Netflix-like subscription model, the competition will be less about money & more about attention/retention (already the case today in the F2P industry).

If your income is tied to how much / how long your audience is playing your game, then you have a direct incentive to implement player retention mechanics to keep your audience captive, all while people can more easily butterfly between games. Just so you know, I hate it already.

The format shapes the content.
Or, the medium is the message.

That's why TV shows used to have cliffhangers.
That's why F2P all follow similar game design templates.

The game design is not about maximizing enjoyment anymore, but it's about juicing you for profit.

My big concerns with Google are their political bias, privacy, unclear moderation & US morality enforcement.

So far, Google has a terrible track record. When you look at the random unfair demonetization hitting YouTubers, we developers should worry.

Art isn't supposed to be safe.
Art isn't supposed to be politically correct.
Art isn't supposed to be puritan.
Art isn't supposed to spare feelings.

It's supposed to wake you up, make you think, to shake your predigested thoughts, to help you sidestep & see things differently.

How Google will manage violent or sexually suggestive games? Could Google protect games like The Last of Us, Mortal Kombat, or Dead or Alive? Will they resist to the pressuring calls to censorship by activists & journalists?

That's the big question for me.