VideoGame_Discussion

Guess I’ll try to play through AC Odyssey. That’s the only game I’ve purchased on Stadia.

Sounds about right. Good on them to do right by those that did adopt the platform. I'm sure we'll see a bunch of videos on other uses for the Stadia controller pop up over the next few months.

The big shocker is the refunds. I can think of literally no other company that would refund games purchased on their digital platforms. Even the cloud-only games.

benstylus wrote:

Agreed, this is very cool of them. I was a sucker that bought the "limited" launch edition one. I look forward to my refund!

I was reading the BBC article about this, and they mentioned how Stadia was positioned as the Netflix for gaming. I don't remember hearing Google ever saying something along those lines, but that's what people definitely thought Stadia was going to be. The problem was Stadia was never supposed to be that. All it was, was a different platform to buy games on. And for that, people prefer other services. If it was streaming with the option to purchase, like Xbox, then I think it would've done better. But as just another platform, cloud game/streaming or not, people never wanted that.

I'm actually surprised it lasted this long ... usually Google pulls the plug on these projects a lot faster

benstylus wrote:

Wow, I think I bought like 4 of the bundles over time to resell

Hate the game, not the player.

I posted this in Ren2k's thread about this news:
I bought a bundle with a Chromecast, controller and like 2 months of subscription. I also landed another 4 months for free from some promo so I enjoyed checking it out for a little while. I think I beat like 5 games before my sub ended but I don't think it would've been worth it had I paid for that sub time.
I didn't mind the $25 (if memory serves - just recalled it was $22.22 for their 2nd year anniv or something) I paid for the bundle as I believe I could use the controller for other things/systems and it's decent. Also I wanted a newer Chromecast to upgrade over my original one, and I use it still.
I will say that when I used the service both on that cCast and more often via the Chrome browser on my older PC, I had no issues with casting the games. Granted I played games that were simpler like the point n click title The Darkside Detective. But others like platformers played fine as well.
But it's a Google product, so there's ZERO shock they're killing it.

Additionally I'll say that @DCGX via the Pro sub it was a bit like GP, but was very weak when compared to the M$ option. They offered around 5-8 games new each month but you had to have an active sub the month they were offered to claim them and could play those claimed games for a good while. I can't fully recall if games would leave after a while, but I'm guessing eventually they would. The 5 or so games I mentioned beating above were all the Pro sub included ones as I didn't pay anything towards 'owning' a license to a game on the service. I do believe that if I would have re-subscribed that I would've regained access to the Pro games in my library, but any games given out while my sub was inactive were fully missed, or I could surely purchase them.
The other benefit from a Pro sub was discounted game purchases so yeah that's a lot more like XBLive and GwG. Cost was $10/month I'm pretty sure, but I can't buy the sub now to confirm.
A final drawback for me was that a good 75+% of the offered Pro freebies were games I could get for free on other platforms or 100% didn't care about.

I did just visit their page to see my library and a number of the games show something like 'Play 30/60/90 mins at no cost'. I recall seeing that before, but now games I'm listed as 'claimed' also show that, so I wonder if that's changed some since I left the service around March. I can also confirm that games do leave, so it's less GP-like as only Kaze and the Wild Masks, of the 5 games I beat on there, is still available and it's down to only 30 mins of free time to play it.

Admiral wrote:

How did you make out? Was it super profitable?

@Slickriven Yeah 5-8 games just wasn't enough if people were treating it like Netflix. It never helped that they weren't very clear from the start what exactly the service was.

But honestly, the biggest thing scaring me away from Stadia from the get-go was Phil Harrison. All I could think of at that time was how (mostly) he handled the Xbox One launch and I couldn't help but assume the same for Stadia. His take over of Xbox actually made me "switch sides" to Sony as my lead console after being with Xbox from the start (though Sony has helped me "switch" back to Xbox).

@DCGX wait wasn't Phil Harrison at Sony? Don Mattrick was the head on Xbox gaming when the One launched. Not that I regard Phil too much higher than Don as they were both dolts, and I thought similar things about how Phil was a bad choice.

Oh you're right! I always get those two guys confused. Harrison didn't handle the PS3 launch well. Though, honestly, neither of them are great at this thing.

I got one for free from the Google Store for being a YouTube Premium subscriber. I never paid for a subscription lol and it's still sealed.

Someone at work brought one in once and I thought it was pretty cool.

If they are really going to do refunds then it must have sold horribly. It's not like google actually cares if people won't trust their next thing. Their track record is wild. https://killedbygoogle.com/

Google gives up so easy. Hangouts was my most used app, and amongst friends and family. Chat is a crapty replacement. They are legit the worst at figuring out their messaging platform. I'm amazed Voice is still operable, only a matter of time before they shut that down.

Deleted. I’m trying to be better.

BloodPuppetX wrote:

You might not have to. Ubisoft has said they are gonna try to help people who bought the games on Stadia transfer their games to another platform. I forget who else said the same.

Good riddance burn in hell cloud gaming and never attempt to darken my doorstep again.

Stadia actually worked pretty well. I beat a few games on it. It was nice when I was traveling and had free 3-month trials. You didn’t have to pack up much to be able to play recent generation games. I didn’t use it enough that I’ll miss it persay, but it wasn’t a terrible platform.

Lunar wrote:

"Super"...nah. I actually kept 1 to try myself, and my internet really didn't keep up with the streaming. Probably $100 ish profit on them, but they sold fast.

https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/12790109

Starting November 9, 2022, Stadia will attempt to automatically process refunds for all purchases of games, add-on content and subscriptions fees other than Stadia Pro made through the Stadia Store. We ask for your patience as we work through each transaction and ask that you refrain from contacting Customer Support as they will not be able to expedite your refund during this time. We still expect the majority of refunds to be processed by January 18th, 2023.

Got my refunds today. Turns out I bought two games (Kona and AC: Odyssey).

Got the email that my hardware refund will be issued in next two weeks

Got the same email 2 days ago.

Never got my refund ... they sent it to a card that I don't have anymore. Thought my bank would manage it, but no ... it was rejected. If you're in the same spot, look for an email from "payments-noreply@google.com" - that I accidently deleted. Had to update payment method, and now wait ~2 months for the refund.

Got my refunds. One of which was a gift card. Now I have $100 to spend on thing I don't need.

Lunar wrote:

If you buy digital movies, Google connects to Movies Anywhere ... a potential use.

I've ascended from paying to borrow digital movies.

Lunar wrote:

If you use YouTube premium or Google Domains, I believe you can use the gift card towards those as well

https://community.stadia.com/t5/Stadia-General/A-G...

A free game was added and they'll be unlocking Bluetooth on the pad soon.

Foxhack wrote:

That is amazing news! The controller feels really good, so I'm happy I'll actually be able to try it out.

That's pretty sweet of them to unlock BT on the pad for other use. It's an OK controller, I'll pick Xbox/Playstation controllers every time over this one, but cool nonetheless!

The very first Stadia game is now the very last Stadia game. It's poetic... or something.

BT unlock is nice, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my controller otherwise - might use it paired to an older Android tablet then. It's an odd controller... I've got it, a PS4 and X1 all together right now - obviously the stick/d-pad layout is PS4 but it's a little closer in size and weight to the X1 - it actually feels heavier vs. the X1 (with 2x AAs inside) but I suppose that makes sense with some extra tech for direct wi-fi connectivity and I surmise the battery is larger and surely heavier vs. the PS4. I recall from using it last year that the center 4 buttons were annoying as there are the 2 akin to the X1, but they're higher on the device and a capture and share button were basically in the same location to the X1 buttons. I was/am so used to the X1 that I would hit the other 2 on the Stadia controller all the time from muscle memory. Stadia button is pretty close to the same location as PS4, not that I hit those 2 all that often without looking at the controller first. I'd say the d-pad was pretty weak as well.

Glad to hear that. While I don't own one, opening up BT support will hopefully reduce the amount of e-waste.

image

There she goes.

I played through three new games, replayed two others, and dabbled in a whole bunch more since they announced they were shutting down. I also played a bit of Worm Game last night. Oddly enough, it's a terrible game for the platform. You have to be so precise with your turns that you really feel the input lag. Either that, or the game is just laggy in general.

I'm about to poke through my Takeout archive to see if I can move any of these save files over.

Well, this seems crapty.

I went to unlock bluetooth on the controller so my son can use it on the Amazon Fire Cube. Both Windows and Chrome detected the controller.

Upon unplugging, the light on the home button stayed on. Plugged it in, let it charge for a few hours.

Plugged back into the PC (the home button still lit the whole time), now Chrome/Windows can't detect the controller.

Feels like they bricked it? I've tried multiple cables, and multiple PC's, no dice ...

Next option is to try letting the battery die and repeat it all.

On a related note, has anyone tried Luna? I noticed that they have free games with Prime (aside from the premium $9.99 a month service) but never tried it.

After letting the Stadia controller die, i was able to repeat the process. Bluetooth unlocked, paired and works perfectly on Fire TV.

Thanks for the reminder @MrBean - had to go dig mine out and charge it, but it's now converted over to Bluetooth, wasn't difficult and maybe I'll use it with a phone or tablet, my PC has BT as well, which is nice.

This was a reminder for me as well. My controller was at 0% charge. I used it for a whole 5 minutes back when I initially got it.

While I use Xbox or DualSense for most things now adays, this might be a fun controller to play some retro games with.

Frank wrote:

I beat a handful of games on Stadia with the controller connected to my PC and TV. It wasn't too bad, but the big snag for me was the capture button on the right (to the left of the X) was more/less in the same spot as the hamburger button on the X1/Series controller that I am way more accustomed to. So I frequently hit that instead of the hamburger button I wanted, which is above it on the Stadia controller. So I took a good number of screenshots that I later had to delete. It's similar on the the other side as well, with the share button's placement vs. the ... button that would be like a select button I suspect. Hopefully if I go to use it, I can easily remap that.

I think it's okay. Some people don't like the position of the analog sticks, and I personally found the position of the utility buttons really awkward, like @Slickriven noted above.

It's not a great controller for latency either. It was meant to be connected over wifi with Bluetooth only handling pairing, firmware updates, audio, etc. The team was able to turn it into a vanilla Bluetooth controller, but the device itself isn't optimized for fast Bluetooth inputs.

Interesting to think that BT will be laggy - sort of lame, but at least it's not just a total throw away.
Since it is USB-C, I would think/hope that control commands get sent over that?? If so, then it should be a decent wired controller to a PC or possibly device.
I generally use an X1/Series controller on my PC over microUSB cord, so wired on PC doesn't bother me.

Yeah, it's totally fine as a wired controller.

MrBean wrote:
It says that once you switch from wifi to Bluetooth on the controller, you can't switch back. The permanent change once you go to Bluetooth seems strange to me. I wonder why they do that. Is it a software thing? Like some sort of "once you overwrite this code, it can't be rewritten"

nonamesleft wrote:

Likely "could" be done, but they'd have had to develop software to downgrade the firmware. Them having a one and done approach is easier on their end.