 So this past week Google killed off its game streaming service that was called stadia and If you follow technology at all, I mean seriously at all like even just Tengentially you'll know that this is not a surprise to anyone like Google kills off Approximately 95% of the products that they actually launch. It's not a good company when it comes to actually Sticking with something for any period of time unless it's Android or search or ads The product that Google launches is probably going to eventually be canceled because they cancel everything So the fact that Google stadia has been canceled is not a surprise to anyone and really doesn't deserve to be covered in any amount of depth But I wanted to talk about some things that I've seen online over the last few days because there have been some talk Over how this is bad for links gaming now I racked my brain trying to figure out how this could possibly be bad for Linux gaming because Nobody used Google stadia and when I say nobody I mean not a measurable amount of people, right? If a ton of people actually used Google stadia then Google wouldn't have canceled it Well, I mean they might have still canceled it because that's what they do But from what we can tell the reason why they canceled is because nobody actually used the service So I don't really understand this argument that the death of stadia is a bad thing for links gaming And there are several reasons why I don't think it's possible First of all is the big one that I just talked about Nobody actually used stadia again with the asterix that when I say nobody I mean very few people So that's the big one But the other one is is that when it comes to gaming on Linux The big dog in the house was always steam right if you want to play a game on Linux There's about a 95% chance that you're going to be using steam to do so The other 5% is Lutris I mean there those are the two big platforms when it comes to gaming on Linux and both of them rely on wine and proton to Do their thing in order to ensure that you can play Windows games on Linux Those are the technologies that they use those are the platforms that everybody uses to play games on Linux and those platforms and those technologies have become so good over the last two or three years that Linux doesn't really need game streaming in order to be a good Operating system for gaming. It doesn't mean that there isn't a place for game streaming It just means that stadia was never going to be the savior of Linux gaming because Linux gaming didn't really need saving from stadia It already had a savior and that savior was named steam and proton so those people out there who are arguing that Stadia dying is a bad thing for Linux gaming I don't really understand that argument simply because I don't think it actually ever moved the needle on making gaming on Linux easier because Most people again are going to be playing their games on steam now There are situations where a game streaming service does make sense on Linux. So if the game is not available on steam or perhaps it's it's Something that just doesn't really run all that well in proton, which is those titles definitely do exist I mean, there's tons of them actually or maybe it has some kind of anti-cheat or something like that a Game streaming service then would allow people to play those games where they wouldn't otherwise necessarily be able to do so Game streaming does have its place But it was never going to be stadia simply because stadia was bad when it first launched the Experience was bad, but also people don't want to have to pay for the games and then have it locked into a service Now people don't mind paying for games. Obviously we can tell that by the fact that the game industry is this multi billion-dollar Industry, but people don't want to buy games and then be locked down to Google services now It's not necessarily even the lock-in idea in general that turned a lot of people way It was the fact that you were locked into a Google service because people know Even if they only follow Google, you know in the broadest sense They know that Google cancel stuff all the time. This was a idea right from the beginning of stadia Everybody knew that eventually stadia was going to die. I mean, it was just it was inevitable It didn't matter how successful it was how good it was how many people bought into it Eventually Google was just not going to want to do it anymore and they were going to cancel it That was the thing so people didn't want to invest hundreds of dollars Maybe even thousands of dollars into a game library onto a service that was very likely to be canceled in a couple years And here we are a couple years later and stadia is gone So they call everybody and on top of that of course that there are other game streaming services out there That did a much better job. So the Nvidia offering seems to be a very good service for a lot of people who want to use their games on Linux and that only allows you to tie into your steam library, but also a collection of games offered by Nvidia for subscription fee, right? Same thing with Microsoft xCloud now while xCloud is probably not very much of a Linux thing because you have to pretty much use edge in order to use it and it's Very much tied into the Microsoft ecosystem It's still a service where you pay money and you get access to a whole bunch of games Whereas with the stadia stuff. Yes, you had some access to free games But the for the most part you had to pay for each individual game And it was kind of locked into that one particular service So the competition for stadia was always going to be better Microsoft whatever you think of them, which Most of that stuff is going to be fair. They know their games Okay, they know how to create an ecosystem for people to play games because they do Xbox So the Xbox games pasting is a really good deal you get a lot of games for a small amount of money a month or whatever it is and Because that exists they were able to take that infrastructure and move it into xCloud now I don't know if xCloud has been any more of a success than stadia was But it has from my limited limited experience and from the people I've talked to been a better experience for gamers Than stadia ever was so at the end of the day Stadia was never going to be the savior of Linux gaming It was doomed from the start even outside of the Linux sphere for different reasons But it was never going to be that popular on Linux for many reasons The biggest one being that it didn't really wasn't really needed right steam was the thing and the vast majority of games that people want to play seem to be on steam or They have or there are other options to get those games things like looters and the heroic game launcher things like that So stadia is gone. Most people don't care and I don't think that it is as a Blow to Linux gaming as some people are making it out to be so that is it for this video If you have comments on stadia, you can leave those comments in the comment section below I'd love to hear from you. Maybe you're a big fan of stadia and you're upset that it's gone I'd love to hear from you I would be surprised if there's anybody who's really upset about stadia, but maybe there is and I just don't know that so Comments in the comment section below. You can follow me on Twitter at the Linux catch You can follow me on master on our odyssey those links will be in the video description You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash the next cast just like all these fine people Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon YouTube you guys are all Absolutely amazing people Without you the channel this would not be anywhere near where it is right now. 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