Google Stadia's business model 'totally killed them' according to cloud developer

techradar.com:

There's been an explosion in cloud gaming service providers over the last few years, many of which have struggled to capture a wider audience of gamers.

We've seen success stories in the form of Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now, of course. But more still have missed the mark on providing stable or cost-effective services, namely attempts like Amazon Luna and Google Stadia.

To understand why cloud gaming platforms like Google Stadia stumbled off the blocks, I spoke to Yannis Weinbach, CMO of Shadow(opens in new tab) – a service that emulates a full Windows 10 PC experience via the cloud for a monthly fee.

And while Shadow isn't solely a cloud gaming platform, Yannis's thoughts on why services like Stadia are floundering were insightful and thorough.

According to Yannis, there's two vital components cloud gaming services have to nail out of the gate. The first is «definitely the business model,» he says. And in regards to Google Stadia, he believes this is something that «totally killed them.»

«When Stadia launched,» Yannis says, «the idea was to say you had to pay [for] games on PC that you probably already own on other platforms.

»Either you do it with a full gaming catalog like Xbox [Cloud Gaming] or make use of other distribution platforms, which is basically what GeForce Now is doing."

Creating an entirely new distribution platform was always going to be an uphill battle  for Google, then. As Yannis alluded to, Xbox Cloud Gaming is able to find success as it's already tied to the vast Xbox Game Pass Ultimate library. And as it's bundled in with the subscription, you don't need to pay a cent extra to access its cloud library on your PC or smart device.

GeForce Now sidesteps the issue by connecting to your existing PC