Google Stadia, a blind shot into the future of gaming

In the first quarter of 2019, Google gave us a glimpse into the future cloud gaming system with Google Stadia. With Google Stadia, Google was trying to create a streaming platform like Netflix but with video games. So that you can play every game, no matter how intense or graphics-heavy, on any device or screen without worrying if it has enough power to play. At first, this seems like a good move for Google since it has the resources, capital, capacity, and advanced technologies to make streaming video game happens.

Google Stadia works by playing or running a game from one of Google’s data, then it sends a video or a screening of that game to its user through any screen. The user sends input to the data center to control the game via the internet. Google’s vision for this process to have no latency, lag with high definition resolution, and frame per second (Google claims that Google Stadia can play Doom Eternal 4k with HDR at 60 fps). One caveat that seems to holds Google Stadia back is the internet connection. Many users do not seem to guarantee the smooth connectivity to utilize all of the Google Stadia features. Also, the streaming platform only holds a few games like Assassin Creed and Doom. This issue had held Google Stadia back from any user to purchase it or even use it.

Link: (112) Google Stadia wants to be the Netflix of gaming – YouTube

Cyberpunk 2077: From Hype to Humiliation

Cyberpunk 2077’s launch is the gaming equivalent of a car crash, a debut so disastrous that even those who’ve never touched a controller can’t look away. It has been meme’d to death, talked about incessantly for the past month, and has been made into a modern cautionary tale about false advertising. But why? Did the road to getting Cyberpunk always have big bumps?

The game was announced back in 2012 by Polish gaming studio CD Projekt Red. CDPR had grown a positive reputation due to the success of The Witcher 3 and their “consumer-friendly” practices. They promised CP2077 would have elements such as a sprawling sci-fi world, deep customization, and even Keanu Reeves as his own character (I mean, who doesn’t love Keanu?).

All of this changed when the game released on December 10th, as many gamers found the game unplayable with bugs, glitches, and terrible artificial intelligence. The demand for refunds was so overbearing that Sony removed the game from their online store and both them and Microsoft offered full refunds.

What happened? Warning signs were a vocal minority leading up to the release. Critics pointed at their past games (The Witcher series) as also having bugs and glitches. This was especially true for current generation consoles.Employees point at a toxic work environment filled with rumors, miscommunication and overworking. Numerous delays can be seen as an indicator (Sep 17th to Nov 19th to Dec 10th).

I think the disaster of Cyberpunk is just a symptom of many ongoing problems in the gaming industry. Misleading marketing, buggy launches, nasty company culture only touch the tip of the iceberg. It will only end when we as consumers start talking not only with our words, but our wallets. Be careful about what you pre-order, don’t give into the hype until you play the game, and always hold companies accountable. What about you? Do you think this situation is blown out of proportion or well deserved?

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/style/cyberpunk-2077-video-game-disaster.html

Birth of Cyberpunk 2077

Most avid gamers have been awaiting the release of Cyberpunk 2077. This game has been known to come out for 8 years and it has finally reached its way to consumers. The graphics are known to very realistic and there are many avatar customizations available. I do not personally know much about video games, but I know that this one has been talked about for months.

It is known that depending on where you are playing this game from, there are some issues that can be fixed. This game has been known to be one of the top streamed games on Twitch, but has not been banned due to sexual content or nudity. Twitch made an exception for this game that does not always follow their guidelines. Do you think that is the right decision or should they make sure every game streamed on Twitch follows their guidelines?

https://www.cnet.com/news/cyberpunk-2077-10-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-playing/

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/13/tech/cyberpunk-2077-nudity-twitch/index.html

The New PlayStation 5 Could Be Bad For GameStop

GameStop, since being founded almost 36 years ago has been facing lots of financial problems for the past five years which look to be getting even worse during the upcoming holiday season. In the past five years, the stock price has fallen almost 80% with the last peak being $48 in 2015 and currently being $9 with a strong downward trend since.

After being announced last September, the digital Playstation 5 which has the same performance as the normal one, however, lacks a disk player to play physical games has the potential to hurt GameStop. The introduction of the digital PlayStation 5 is just one reason why GameStop which relies on physical games is losing lots of income.

Even GameStop has recognized their faults with their CEO George Sherman saying, “Gaming as an industry could not be stronger … it’s us that needs to pivot. It’s GameStop that needs to make some changes.” If consumers are compelled to purchase the digital PlayStation, GameStop would suffer from a lack of physical game sales. After reporting losses of almost $110 million in the last quarter and the closing of 400-450 stores, it is very clear that GameStop needs to rethink its approach to the upcoming digital consoles. It is projected that GameStop will be fine for the next three to four years before 5G and cloud gaming become more popular and until that point, GameStop will need to “reinvent itself in terms of its positions around physical software.”

The next few years will send GameStop into the ‘Blockbuster era’. Blockbuster LLC closed in 2010 and between 2013-2014, thousands of Blockbuster stores were closed. The primary reason Blockbuster suffered was because of the introduction of Netflix’s online streaming service. In addition to Netflix, Blockbuster failed to adapt to a changing retail environment where streaming media made renting irrelevant.

As the holiday season approaches, do you think GameStop will stay afloat?

 

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/03/tech/ps5-gamestop-digital-cloud/index.html

Google’s Stadia Technology Potential for At-Home Work

In 2019, Google released their new Google Stadia streaming service, allowing people to play video games on any device, in any place. As tech radar states, “Stadia grants you access to a growing digital game library that works anywhere you go.” The technology allows users to play video games on googles remote hardware, and simply stream the video to whatever device you are using, allowing people with low end hardware to play the newest games at the best quality. As a video game fan myself, this is very exciting, as I know how costly hardware upgrades can become to keep up with new game requirements. This post however aims more at what this technology can provide to people other than just in regards to video games.

In recent times, we have seen a huge rise in the number of people who work/study at home or on the go, especially with the impact of COVID-19. This is why I think Google’s Stadia technology can be implemented into other things, such as intensive software programs that people often find themselves using for projects and work. Applications like Adobe Premier, CAD, and many others often have costly hardware specification requirements to use them at their maximum and most efficient potential. With the rise in at-home work and study, many people might not have access to the hardware required to do proper work. With this in mind, I think the technology of cloud-based computing and streaming has massive potential to make remote work much more viable, and cost efficient. Employees and students could use this technology to stream software applications on any device, anywhere they are granted they have an internet connection. This would eliminate the need for personal, or institutional investment to equip employees and students with the proper hardware needed.

As well, this has the potential to improve the way we work in-house at companies and in school as well. Facilities could be able to scale-down the large technology infrastructures they currently have, saving space, and the need for in-house IT services.

All in all, I think Google’s Stadia technology has the potential to make a massive impact on something other than just gaming, and I’m excited to see what the future holds for it.

Source: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/google-stadia

Nintendo Switch leading console sales in 2020

As discussed in class, PC gaming remains the most popular platform for modern gaming. With this tough competition, how do console companies continue to survive? Overall, consoles are losing interest from consumers throughout the years and sales are projected to consistently go down. Xbox and Playstation are both working on new releases in hopes to bring back attention to console gaming as a result of their declining sales. However, the Nintendo Switch has seen a steady trend of increasing sales since launch despite hardware spending with a 34% drop in the last year according to NPD analyst Mat Piscatella.

Nintendo Switch Sales

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/687059/nintendo-switch-unit-sales-worldwide/

One main aspect that can be contributed to Nintendo’s newfound success is innovation. After dealing with the failure of their past release, Wii U, they had to strategize in order to recover from the lack of sales. The Nintendo Switch differentiates itself from other consoles with its dual feature of being a home console and also a portable device. User can dock the video game system at home to project it onto a TV or attach the controllers to the screen to bring it with them wherever they go. This seems to have been a great move for Nintendo with the company struggling to compete with other giants before the release of the Switch. Another point that helps Nintendo bring in money is the exclusive gaming titles that can only be played on their device, forcing customers to buy a whole console to play certain games. While these sales are predicted to go up in the near future, it will be interesting to see how all of these companies will come up with new ideas in order to compete with each other and keep the industry alive.

What else can hardware and software developers do in the future to engage their audience and keep console gaming alive?

URL: https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/13/nintendo-switch-leads-february-2020-hardware-sales/

Future Cutting Edge Technology for Virtual Reality

Infinadeck is a new company that is developing and manufacturing the world’s first omnidirectional VR integrated treadmill. This innovation would allow the user to be able to walk within the virtual reality in perfect sequence with real life, thus making the VR gaming experience unlike any other. As a personal virtual reality headset owner, I tend to get ill with motion sickness in VR after about 30-45minutes of playtime. This happens because viewing the motion of my character in the game while I remain static in the real world throws off the balance that you feel when in the real world. This omnidirectional treadmill can rid all VR users of the feeling of motion sickness because their bodies and their virtual characters would be in perfect sync with each other. The only issue with this new piece of equipment is that it is bulky and bound to be expensive. Other than those, this technology could break bounds into newer technology that could further enhance virtual reality experiences. I believe Virtual Reality is going to grow more and more until it becomes common-place like console and PC gamers. What are your thoughts on the omnidirectional treadmill? And what are your thoughts on new advancements in virtual reality, not just in games, but other experiences such as education, emergency training, fitness, etc?

Also to have a better grasp as to what this technology would be like, there is a movie called “Ready Player  One” that has a perfect example of an omnidirectional treadmill.

Source: https://www.infinadeck.com/

Console vs PC

The war between consoles and PC have been a gruesome one in the gaming industry, many people have debated which is the better way to play games, there are even a dedicated community on reddit called PC master race (https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/) with 3 million subscribers, the reason for such communities to exist is very simple, they believe that PC is better than console in general.

Let’s start this off with some history info, in 1972, the very first video game console was introduced, it was called Magnavox Odyssey, but the first real one to be purchased in many homes was the Atari 2600 that was released in 1977, it was known for classic titles such as pong, throughout the years, consoles have kept improving, currently the most popular video game console is the PS4, released in 2013.

Now let’s take a look at PC, computer gaming wasn’t a thing until the video gaming industry crash of 1983, after 1983, there has been a rise of “bedroom coders” that have made their own games but console games were still more popular then, PC gaming became popular and mainstream starting from 1990s and onwards.

Why do so many people believe PC is better than console nowadays? First of all, PC is a lot more flexible, when you buy a console, you may only select pre-assembled machines from companies when you try to obtain a PC, you have a variety of options and have the freedom to build it yourself. PC games are also very easy to mod, which have led to many player-created content games thrive such as Minecraft, gmod, Rimworld.

Do you prefer to play games on console or PC and why? And what is your view on the whole console vs PC war?

Video game Microtransactions

Do you remember when games used to come out to be completely playable, little to no bugs, nothing you need to pay to unlock, no DLCs and can offer hundreds of hours of entertainment? Those were a simpler time.

Monetization in video games has seen a drastic change in recent years, nowadays, more and more games releases felt unfinished, just to realize that some content was probably cut to be sold as DLCs later. More and more games greet you with a banner telling you there is a deal going on and you can get 10 shiny loot boxes for only $24.99. There are even a few very notorious examples of a company putting a full $60 price tag on their games, and forcing players to pay more in-game to unlock content or to progress their characters. In this Reddit thread , a user named MBMMaverick expressed his displacement about EA locking a key character “Darth Vader” in their game “Star Wars BattleFront 2” which the user has already paid $80 for, EA’s response replied stating “The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.” Which were quickly massively criticized by Reddit users and this comment would become the most downvoted comment in the history of Reddit (668K downvotes.)

So what exactly is wrong with microtransactions? In my opinion, microtransactions are fine as long as they cosmetic and doesn’t impact gameplay much, I believe microtransactions can indeed provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment, but the boundaries are very vague and difficult to pin it down, Call of Duty World War 2 has a genius execution for microtransactions, while you are opening loot boxes, you go into a lobby where people can practice shooting or just chat with each other, when you open a loot box, your loot box content is visible to all other players in this lobby, so when you get a lucky pull, you can show them off to all nearby people and sometimes people log in just to go onto this lobby to watch people open loot boxes.

Overall, microtransactions are not exactly a bad thing, but some companies have way overdone and in turn ruined the reputation of their games such as NBA2K19, which 65% the users reviewed the game as “would not recommend.” , Fallout 76, which suffered a chain of catastrophic events that lead to the game’s swift death just a few weeks after it’s initial release and many others.

Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppum98/

NBA2k19’s steam page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/841370/NBA_2K19/

Did Bungie Save Destiny 2?

Destiny 2 was one of the most anticipated games back in 2017 named one of the best shooters games to be release. After about 3 months of the game being release, the game disappointed almost all of the players after players progression through the game went fast and close to all players were out of content to play. This discourage players making them stop playing the game. People were anticipating a game with a lot of content that would require a long grind to even get close to the “end-game” stage of the game. Instead people received a game that was so casual they breezed through the story and end game missions and raids in less than 3 months.

 

But, things seemed to have changed with the recent DLC called “Forsaken”. Forsaken adds some of the most asked features including random-rolls on weapons, rather than preset modifiers, a collection tab allowing players to require weapons they have already found or unlocked that they have gotten rid of, a triumph tab allowing player to see what they have completed in the game, a brand new story where player find out what happens to one of the main character Cayde-6, and a new raid with some of the most challenging mechanics. In a recent article from theverge.com says, “what Destiny 2 did offer just wasn’t that fun”.  Only time will tell how fast players get through all the content but as of right now, it seems like Bungie have revived their game Destiny 2