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Stadia Makes Gaming More Affordable than Ever

Stadia is the most accessible, affordable way for a new player to get into gaming. While plenty of games exist on phones, non-gamers aren’t going to pay money for new gaming experiences when they don’t really understand what they’re getting. When they download a free title, consumers have learned to expect being nickel-and-dimed every time they engage with the game. Mobile games might be free, but most of them are also trash.

To the point, REAL gaming has always required a significant upfront investment from the player. What’s more, the initial cost of the game on top of that investment. Game consoles have always cost what is typically equivalent to a day’s wages or more. This has even been true of hand-held devices like the Game Boy or PSP. The cheapest the gaming market has ever seen consoles was the Nintendo 2DS at a mere $79 at retail. For the titles that released on the 3DS, that was bargain bin pricing for a fantastic console. But $79 is still nothing to sneeze it, especially since you’d need to buy a $40 Nintendo game to play on it. 

Stadia is the first platform that has ever allowed the consumer to play console-quality games at no up-front cost. Almost everyone in Western society owns either a tablet or a computer. In the off chance they don’t own one of those, they still likely have access to a smart-tv or a smartphone. Stadia being accessible on essentially any computing device means gaming is now just as accessible as tv or radio, on devices that consumers already own and are familiar with. AAA gaming experiences that used to cost hundreds of dollars before the game was even turned on are now playable without so much as having to watch an ad. That’s immensely powerful stuff.

While the free-to-play movement in gaming has caused some harm to long-time fans it has also lowered the barrier of entry for video games to practically nothing. Ironically, games are now almost MORE accessible than tv or radio, because console free-to-play games rarely have any ads at all and the play session can continue indefinitely without interruption. While free-to-play games on mobile are often predatory, it at least has allowed consumers to become familiar with the idea of games being free, and that’s especially useful for users that are brand new to Stadia. Top quality F2P games like PUBG and Destiny 2 are great entry points for building a sense of value in the casual gamer, and can help convince them that paying $10 or $20 for a “premium” game isn’t just a great experience, but also a fantastic value long term.

Stadia Pro is well witin the price range of other subscription services like Netflix and Hulu too. With over 50 games in the library, a new player could spend a great deal of time exploring the world of gaming for an incredible price. Pound for pound, no other subscription service gives away more games at the $10 price point. While competitive, Playstation Plus Extra is $13 and Xbox Game Pass is $15. At this point in time, neither of those services provide options to buy games and continue to play them in the cloud without a subscription. In addition, those services require the use of proprietary controllers, which add an upfront cost to the experience. On Stadia, the player has a wide selection of compatible control styles, including their mouse and keyboard.

Finally, multiplayer is something that other consoles require a subscription for. On Stadia, multiplayer is completely free. That alone gives Stadia a $60 annual savings over Playstation and Xbox and a $20 advantage of Nintendo. Added up over 5 years, it equates to half the price of the console or more. Stadia’s multiplayer features aren’t just simple and intuitive, but a multiplayer session is never going to cost more than the simple effort of starting the game. 

In a free market, the best value typically wins. In the gaming market in 2022, Stadia is hands-down the winner here, even before game discounts, subscriptions and free trials are factored in. All that’s left is educating the public on how easy it is to start enjoying some of the best games in the world.

Sony's Live Service Play

Sony knows the future of interactive entertainment is turning games into hobbies. In the near future, most gamers will likely only be playing 2-3 games (if that) and they will be coming back to each game on a regular basis as new content is released. Destiny, Gran Turismo, League of Legends, Warzone, Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege, ALL of these games are hobbies for the people that play them. Earlier this year, Sony confirmed that they have 12 of these games in development. Why such a large number? The executives at Sony know that their audience isn’t going to keep playing all 12. There’s a very good chance that more than half of those games will fail, build a very tiny audience and will get minimal support for years. That’s fine. All Sony REALLY needs is one game like Fortnite. Or Warzone. Or Destiny. One game, carried out over 5-10 years, will pay for every single game that Sony develops in the interim. Sony is making 12 games because they know the more they make, the more chances they have at striking gold. 

Let’s be clear about this, because it bears repeating. No executive at Sony expects all twelve of those games to be successes. Sony is entering the live-service market late, and there are simply too many dominant players taking up mindshare in the space. The average Playstation user already has their favorite game that they have poured months or years of their free-time into. Sony’s challenge will be to not only make amazing live service games, but actually pull those players away from their favorite games to try a new one. Perhaps what Sony may not realize is that although free games will often get downloaded, it's a much bigger task to actually get a player to invest in the universe. That investment by the player involves learning the game's controls, economy, gameplay structure, social functions and seasonal structure. Because live service games are systems built upon systems (battle pass, crafting, grinding, etc), The intellectual investment from the player is considerable. Players know this and it makes free games intimidating. There’s a reason that a large group of hardcore gamers don’t play mobile games; one of those reasons is them knowing the significance of the investment and the payoff of enjoyment. The payoff would be worth discussing later. For now, we can focus on the time investment.

 As a hardcore gamer myself, I find investing in most AAA games that I purchase to be very doable, while trying out a live service experience fills me with suspicion and dread. I go in knowing I’ll need to memorize a complicated economy, deal with advertisements and “sales” and spend a dozen hours figuring out if I’m actually having fun or just satisfying my lizard brain. Even if I decide that I am having fun, I’m then going to do the research to see if the game actually has a healthy player-base and has a chance of surviving the next few years. If I think it doesn’t, I’ll drop it like a parking-lot tv purchase. Even someone like me, who is passionate about the games industry and the different models of payment and financing games have, 6 games in a year is a big ask. Especially from only a single company. 

I don’t blame Sony for wanting to do it. I don’t even think it's a bad idea. But twelve is simply too many. The reason is that their fanbase is eventually going to stop listening and stop trying new products altogether. You can’t just launch an infinite number of games and expect the consumer to pay equal attention to all of them. There is such a thing as attention fatigue, and by releasing that many new free games over the course of a two or three year period, the average Playstation user is going to get sick of hearing about new “free” games and they’re just going to stick with what they know. 

There is also the perception of quality to consider. If Sony has released its 4th live service game, but the last three have been trash, why should I think this new one is going to be any different?  Over the course of a year you might get a customer to try one or two brand new games. There’s no way you’d ever convince them to try all six, and that's especially true if there are six more the next year. Even if these games were released at a cadence of once per quarter, that still only gives the consumer three months to try the game before the “new hotness” is out. For many live service games, that's barely a single season of content. With that kind of timeline, the player barely has a chance for the game to actually become a proper hobby. I suppose a great way to space these titles out then is to alternate their releases by platform. For example, Release a Playstation game in January and then release a mobile game in March.

One of those live service games, I anticipate, is the new Wipeout game. I’ve spent some time watching gameplay videos and reading some preview material for it. This game is going to flop so hard. I doubt it will make gaming headlines. It looks like common, generic, mobile trash, and I say that as a fan of mobile and idle games. What little press has covered the game is unimpressed with the offering, and I fear the game is destined for the bottom half of the 20 million other games on the App Store. This is an important point, however. Not all 12 of those games have to be console releases; in fact it's better if they aren’t. 

Sony is getting into the live service game for the same reason that everyone else is. They want the money. They may not necessarily want a live service game taking wallet share away from their AAA single-player exclusives like God of War or Horizon. They are already getting that money and they want to continue to get it. In contrast, they’re making almost nothing from the mobile space. Finding a revenue stream from the App Store wouldn’t threaten Sony’s current model at all, and it wouldn’t threaten their fan base either. In fact, it likely wouldn’t even upset their fanbase.

Mobile offerings in the gaming space are ignored by the hardcore gaming public. Final Fantasy has been bastardized to hell and back on mobile, but fans don’t seem to care. No one seems to complain about the GTA ports, Dead Cells or other mobile adapted indies. Diablo got crucified, but I suspect that’s mostly because fans haven’t gotten a new diablo game in nearly a decade. Once Diablo 4 comes out, Immortal will be sidelined by gamers and it will continue to have its mobile-centric fanbase. 

Last of Us Factions will of course come out on Playstation 5, and perhaps one or two others. The rest will be mobile adaptations of popular Sony franchises. That keeps hardcore fans from being overwhelmed, and keeps the drama away from the console space. On the other side, it opens revenue streams for Sony on mobile, advertising their franchises to the general public and getting them familiar with franchises that are going to turn into movies.

The best strategy for Sony, then, is to keep most of their live service ideas off of their consoles, and instead seed those ideas in the mobile space. That way, they let their juggernaut exclusive franchises have their spotlight, allowing them to continue charging full prices for premium content. This will make third parties happy too, as they feel they won’t have to compete with the giant budgets of Sony’s AAA first-party games.

3 Ways Apple Arcade Threatens the Gaming Industry

 Its no secret that the new hotness in marketable growth over the last few years has been subscriptions services. We’ve seen the gaming industry jump in to grab their share of the consumer’s wallet through Game Pass and PS Plus, and to a lesser extent Nintendo Switch Online. We’ve also seen big tech jump in too. Google, Amazon, Nvidia and reportedly even Intel are now trying to capture a piece of the gaming pie using their own methods. 

In the world of gaming, the big established players have acted predictably. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo create benefits by giving away games from an already established library of games that have been out for some time. In essence, they’re giving you old games and sugar coating it as a benefit. There are plenty of other benefits like cloud saves, online play, and discounts, but the services are primarily advertised as methods of receiving “free games.” In practice, it means gamers are being given mediocre titles most months that they probably won’t play. Stil the service  will get the occasional AAA experience a couple times a year to justify a continued subscription. Although the conversation month to month with this model can be interesting, seeing which platform is getting a desirable title that isn’t actually trash is most of the conversation. Most of my friends are Playstation Plus subscribers. Almost none of them care what the free games are month-to-month.

On the other side, we see market incumbents like Stadia and Luna establishing themselves through streaming. The biggest issues these digital platforms are having, at least in the short term, is establishing a solid library of titles and getting consumers to recognize that they exist. Streaming will be a viable option for most people in the future. For now, most consumers don’t see the value in it. There are issues with internet providers through data caps and download speeds all over the world and especially in the U.S. There is also a big problem with competitive advantage. If these streaming services don’t have exclusive games (most of them don’t) then there is nothing to distinguish them from the competition, and they risk being perceived as a pipeline through which they get their entertainment products rather than a provider (not unlike gas stations and phone companies).

One new company is doing things its own way. No, not Nintendo (although they are certainly approaching this new problem in their own antiquated way). Apple is actually the unique player in this space. It is the only new gaming platform provider that allows games to be played locally on the device. It is also the only new platform to provide new, exclusive games to its service. Apple’s model most closely resembles Microsoft, but Apple Arcade has its own advantages over the Xbox ecosystem. 
Firstly, it's available locally on phones and tablets. I can play Grindstone offline anywhere, and since it's downloaded on my phone, it will always be with me. Everywhere. Xbox couldn’t match that availability unless they made their own portable gaming system (unlikely). While the Xbox platform is certainly doing well in its own right, it struggles to compete with the portability of Switch, phones and tablets. Cloud streaming is a great long term bet, but let's be honest about the reality of that option. An Xbox owner would likely only be streaming if he was away from home. So he would likely be streaming to a phone, where his console game isn’t optimized for a 6 inch screen. He’s going to have a poor experience, assuming the network isn’t clogged and he has unlimited data. To say nothing of the impractical controls of a console game on a touchscreen. He would need to be carrying an Xbox controller with him, which wouldn’t happen unless he was on a long distance trip. It’s a neat solution but ultimately an impractical one.

Secondly, the game library on Apple Arcade appeals to hyper-casual gaming, which makes up the bulk of market growth and current user base among “gamers.” No other modern gaming platform is taking casual games seriously. “Gaming” on traditional platforms is only becoming more hardcore, and Apple is presenting an ecosystem that will actually be accessible to new gamers, at the most attractive price point to boot. The industry’s revenue in mobile far surpasses traditional console gaming, indicating a far higher number of users and better long term opportunities. Gaming on the phone is something most people do, even if it's something as simple as solitaire. Those numbers are important and those casual users are important in a service focused ecosystem, where the size of the user base is the best indicator of health and sustainability. 

Thirdly, Apple commits longer and harder to its services than any other company. Even if Arcade has poor subscription numbers and slow growth, Apple is bundling Arcade in with their other services as a “bonus” to tiers that many families subscribe to, including their music and TV services. That Apple intelligently bundles Arcade with its other services at the lowest paid tier is a fantastic strategy for getting normal non-gamers to try Arcade.

Arcade has a unique opportunity to create a walled-garden of high quality hyper-casual games. If they can successfully corner the market with smart gaming partnerships, they stand a great chance at building a lasting legacy here. Additionally, the reasons listed above make a strong case for why established gaming companies should be worried about Apple’s future strategic moves. Arcade has had a rough start, but it also has a long road ahead of it.

Apple Arcade Needs a Title Like Elden Ring

In its first 5 weeks on the market, Elden Ring sold over 13 million copies. It's a staggering number in a market that has steadily worked to make games easier and more accessible. It’s a figure that flies in the face of analyst predictions and armchair investors. No one could have predicted the success of a game that works so hard to punish it’s players. Hardcore gaming isn’t just alive and well, but fans are hungry for more. As inspiring as this is, it  isn’t the first time this has happened in the gaming world.
In the early days of gaming, most titles were staggeringly difficult. Compare Super Mario Odyssey (2018) to the original Super Mario Bros. (1985). For a casual gamer, it's very common to die on the first level of the original, whereas you’d have to be completely inept to die in the first world of Mario Odyssey. Part of the reason for that was that early designers recognized that one of the joys of gaming was overcoming the difficulty of the challenges. On top of the joy of overcoming the difficulty, working up the skill to overcome it was also time consuming, creating a perceived sense of value in the player. Games lasted for months in those early days because they were hard, not because they had a lot of content. Now in 2022, most games are built to create value by creating a wide breadth of content to extract the same amount of value. The tradeoff creates accessibility and ease of use at the cost of challenge and commitment. 

Difficulty adds value to video games and it also creates opportunities for the player to bond with the game. Although the original Super Mario Bros can be beaten in around two hours, most people wouldn’t beat the game within two hours of owning it-they would take months mastering the game, playing it over and over again to master the more challenging levels. I suspect thats one of the reasons Mario became a beloved mascot. The game being bundled with the Nintendo made it accessible to every console owner. The catchy music and colorful graphics made the game inviting, but the difficulty made the players come back again and again. The difficulty allowed the players to be frustrated and talk about the game, and then create stories about their triumphs. Among mascot platformers, Mario is the most well known and beloved, and I think the difficulty of the original trilogy has played a huge part in that.

Elden Ring has created a similar phenomenon. Players were attracted by the mysterious and dark tone of the graphics and the writing of George Martin.They have committed tremendous numbers of hours mastering the game in its high difficulty level, which allows them to create stories to share with their friends and colleagues, which creates future sales and a larger fanbase. Elden Ring really has stolen the show in 2022. It has dominated the gaming conversation even for people who aren’t playing it. It's a hit. Apple Arcade needs a hit like Elden Ring.

Thus far, Arcade has created its own value proposition. No ads, no microtransactions, all you can eat buffet. That’s something even hardcore console games don’t have. The weakness in Arcade’s library however is that all of the games are accessible, casual or have no sense of wonder. While there are certainly some quality titles, there is nothing AAA to speak of in Arcade. Nothing that sparks the imagination and gives the play a desire to search out and discover the hidden depths and secrets of the world. Even Arcade’s best games are either too easy or lack real depth. Sasquatch has a ton of content and secrets but the game is dreadfully easy. Bleak Sword is tough as nails, but it doesn’t have a world to explore or secrets to uncover. Grindstone is both fun and difficult, but there’s nothing to see beyond the main path: its a puzzle game. 

If Apple wants their service to really be a part of the gaming conversation they need a big, quality, deep AAA experience that will actually give players an experience worth talking about. Arcade can and should have casual games to appeal to gamers of all ages and experience levels, but it also needs a conversation piece. Gaming has always been a social pass-time, even if the games are played alone. Apple needs to recognize the importance of that. 

For that to happen, Apple needs a game that embraces difficulty and obtuse objectives. Something that has tight gameplay but countless secrets and easter eggs. Something that has depth and an explorable world. It also needs something that will benefit from frequent updates and future content. That’s a game that will get someone to pay $5 a month for a whole year so they can experience everything in the game. That’s why it behooves Apple to invest in something like that: because a game like that will keep its players coming back month after month. Call of Duty, Gran Turismo, League of Legends, Hearthstone. All of these games have literally become hobbies and lifestyles for the people that play them. No game on Apple Arcade boasts that kind of identity. Even Grindstone, arguably the best Arcade game, would not qualify as much more than a really fun distraction that lasts a few months.

Stadia Was Right to Close Their Internal Studios

 Stadia’s first two years on the market have been less than stellar. Before Google launched the cloud-based game streaming platform, there were plenty of hopeful headlines and curious, speculative editorials. To their misfortune, the biggest headline that could be drummed up about the platform was their recent closure of their internal game development studios. Way back in February of 2021, Google announced that they would be shutting down development of Stadia exclusive games, that they would instead be focusing on their partnerships and using third parties to bring games to the platform.

In hindsight, that might not have been a terrible idea. Stadia isn’t courting gamers. Not really. During their initial launch, they spent plenty of time bragging about it, but the truth is that (most) gamers are never going to prefer cloud platforms to local hardware. Cloud is a nice thing when there aren’t other options, but a real gamer that actually spends money on the hobby will make sure they have a gaming system in their lives most of the time. This means Stadia will remain a casual interest for gamers, and perhaps a light investment from casual gamers

So if Stadia is going after casual gamers, who don’t pay attention to the industry or the latest titles coming out, why have internal studios developing games for a platform most people aren’t interested in most of the time? Better to pay a well-known developer a lump-sum of cash for a well-known game and then use the accessibility and convenience of Stadia as a selling point for someone to be able to play their favorite game anywhere. It’s also the path for getting the casual gamer, who will only have heard of the biggest titles in gaming. Even if you don’t play video games, you’ve heard of Assassin’s Creed and Red Dead Redemption 2. A casual player will recognize those names, realize they can play right away without any hardware investment, and give the game a whirl on their home computer. That wouldn’t happen with an internally developed, Stadia exclusive game.

Google has the best cloud gaming platform. Tech enthusiasts and websites have concluded as much. So for serious gamers who want to be able to play on the go, Stadia is the best option. Their path forward is to position themselves as the sometimes-necessary service for hardcore gamers, and the easiest go-to option for the biggest AAA titles for casual gamers.

Stadia’s path forward is courting third parties to bring ports of their games to Stadia, and Stadia’s development budgets should be allocated ton incentivize those developers. Its the path of least resistance, and for Google, likely the path with the highest return.