Kaser Focus: Requiescat in Pace, Stadia

Google’s prolonged dabble in the world of gaming has been put out of its misery this week. Stadia will linger in diminished form for a few months, allowing everyone to recoup their spent money, if not their time, from its body. After all the money Google spent on getting big-name games onto its platform, it still couldn’t drum up the necessary support. Not to speak ill of the recently deceased, but I view its downfall with a mix of bemusement and slight melancholy. I feel sorry for the developers and gamers blindsided by the news but not so much for the megacorporation that whiffed Stadia’s execution.

For those who don’t know, I have a history with Stadia — mostly as one of its critics. I was very skeptical about the claims Google was pushing about its new service; one of the first articles I wrote about it was to point out that, contrary to its claims to be a console-less gaming service, the only way to access it at launch was to buy a $129 “Founder’s Edition” with a Chromecast. Also, I criticized the company trying to position its product as a “solution” to expensive console gaming, when Stadia would rely on reliable, fast internet, which isn’t cheap itself.