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THE REAL REASON PEOPLE HATE GOOGLE STADIA

25/11/2019

34 Comments

 
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I did a review of Google Stadia on Friday, having given my initial impressions over on Twitter. As I wrote in the review, I got a lot of... let's charitably call them "comments", from people who insisted I was either an idiot, or lying, or wrong in some way. People who, broadly, hadn't used Stadia, but who were of the unshakable belief that it doesn't work.

I've issues - quite significant ones - with what Stadia offers at the current time. The selection of games doesn't exactly 'wow', they're overpriced, and it all feels very bare bones. However, the technology - the thing which so many people told me, back in the summer when I first wrote about Stadia, wasn't going to work - does work. It works great. For me, at least. 

Now... it's important to stress that it might be that Stadia doesn't work great for everyone. Certainly, I know that Digi2000 contributor SuperBadAdvice hasn't exactly had a seamless experience with it. However, my first impressions continued to be backed up by my personal experience over the weekend, to a point where I forgot I was streaming the games.

Honestly, I had a sudden moment of realisation while playing Rage 2 (thus far, an underrated game that I can't believe I put off playing for so long) where I remembered, and was stunned. I'd been playing for hours with no noticeable lag, no stuttering, and graphics that, if they aren't 4k (the naysayers insist that Stadia upscales its visuals), as close to 4k as to be irrelevant. 

We can get into the whole not-actually-owning-your-games debate another time. I just want to talk about why so many people are still insisting that Stadia doesn't work, in the face of evidence to the contrary. Why are they trying so hard to convince themselves, without any first-hand, experience, that their belief is right? 

Let's take a look at that.
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COMPARISON
I've seen comparison shots of Stadia games next to PC and Xbox/PS4 versions, and they always seem to paint Stadia in the worst light. Speaking again only for myself, Red Dead Redemption 2 on Stadia looks considerably better than it did on my PS4. 

I saw a documentary a while back about Flat Earthers. It was enlightening, because it demonstrated what I believe about a lot of these niche groups; that there's a need among the individuals to belong to something, and to have a cause. Once they've bought into that, it becomes their identity. 

It's why I have such issue with political extremism on all sides, and despair at inflexibility.

Rarely is it about a passionate belief based upon evidence and conviction. If evidence to the contrary manifests, people will contort it, and themselves, to make it fit with their view of the world. It's not looking at a bigger picture. 

That's what seems to be going on with Stadia; all those people who are threatened by it - because it'll take away their physical games, or because a working version of Stadia will expose them as being wrong about it - are contorting the facts; that Stadia works for many people, and many people would prefer streaming over physical media (as I explained in my review).

It's called cognitive dissonance, and Wikipedia describes it thus:

"Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. This discomfort is triggered by a situation in which a person's belief clashes with new evidence perceived by the person. When confronted with facts that contradict beliefs, ideals, and values, people will try to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort."

In short: they'll twist the facts to suit them. Just as is happening with Stadia.
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LIARS!
If somebody says their Stadia experience is working perfectly, they're met with others who'll accuse them of lying, being a corporate shill for Google, or being just plain wrong.

These people are seeking a confirmation bias - "the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that affirms one's prior beliefs or hypotheses" - by literally searching for positive comments about Stadia, and countering them, presumably in an effort to hold onto their own interpretation of reality.

Aside from the grief I got on Twitter, I even had to close comments on the Stadia review - one of the few times I've done so on this site - because somebody was pretending to be me in them, and swearily abusing other commenters. That's just immature lashing out, and kind of a bit tragic.

Cognitive bias is something that we all do. We're all leaning towards our existing beliefs, and having them challenged can be at best mildly uncomfortably, and at worst traumatic. We're all wired differently, so we all respond differently to having our beliefs challenged or threatened. Some of us are more open to those challenges - literally having an open mind - than others. Some see it as a sign of failure or weakness to be told they're wrong. 

On the one hand, it's rarely a surprise when it happens.

What does surprise me, though, is that people are doing this over something like Stadia. I get when it's something as fundamental to a person's identity as a religious belief, but when it's just them being unable to admit they were wrong about whether or not some new technology works... it beggars belief.

Yet that's precisely what they are doing; either with abusive, attacking, language, or by insisting that people who speak positively about Stadia can't possibly have actually experienced it. For the first time in a while, I've seen the term "casual gamers" used in a sniffy, elitist, way. It's so tedious. 

Why do they care about a consumer product with such zealous conviction, so lacking in self-awareness?
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OPINIONS ARE FINE
I think it's fine to have an opinion about Google Stadia. It's okay to not like Google's business practices. It's absolutely right to assess the launch, and to have issues with it (I certainly do).

What I do struggle with is denying the actual experiences of others. I have no stake in whether or not Google Stadia works. I've no loyalty to Google. I don't really care massively one way or another; I signed up to the thing purely to review it on Digi. I only wanted to honestly report my first-hand experience of it, and my experience was that the technology worked way better than expected.

Indeed, if they can build on this foundation, I can see a time when I would prefer to buy a new game on Stadia than on console, because I don't want all the faff of updates and installation. 

Am I in a minority? I dunno, really. Searching for Stadia throws up two types of Tweets; people who haven't experienced it, yet have decided already that it doesn't work and are angry at anybody who suggests otherwise, and those who have used it, and for whom it's working great. 

Who are then accused of lying, or being paid by Google to lie.

It's mental, and a bit sad to be honest, that something isn't being given a chance because of this cognitive dissonance, but as the number of positive reports about Stadia increase, so too do the numbers attempting to cling onto their belief to the contrary. 

 I actually find that sort of blinkered perception of reality a bit scary, regardless of what it's about. In such instances, you're never dealing with a rounded, grounded, person who can be reasoned with, in a rational way, but with a persona that's entirely built around one single, all-consuming, belief.

​It's like dealing with a machine.
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34 Comments
Leon link
25/11/2019 11:34:58 am

But how much did Google pay you to write this article?

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RichardM
25/11/2019 11:41:45 am

I know dickheads are afraid it dilutes their hobby or whatever (like women, and etc. etc.), but come on!

It is literally the ideal thing for me. I haven’t owned a console for about 10 years, have no time to play games beyond maybe a half hour a couple of times a week, and have no space for any more massive plastic shit in my house, and I want a Chromecast to stream stuff from my phone to the TV anyway. I doubt I will play anything but the free games anyway.

I know I’m far from the target market, but it seems to work for me!

I think I’ll buy it just to spite people.

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Favus
25/11/2019 12:16:43 pm

I am enjoying stadia

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PeskyFletch
25/11/2019 06:40:34 pm

LITERALLY NO-ONE ENJOYS STADIA! HERETIC!

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Rudy Manchego link
25/11/2019 12:58:33 pm

I simply cannot understand how and why people are inflexible with certain things... especially consumables. We are consumers, pure and simple. As consumers in a free market for luxuries like gaming, you have one freedom - to buy or not buy. Don't like Stadia? Fine. Don't want it to succeed for personal reasons? Also fine (though sad). Just don't buy it.

For me Stadia is the early adopter of tech that is almost ready but not quite but I believe it is the future of gaming. I don't like that fact but I feel it is coming. If Stadia works for some and does what it says on the tin then yes, one more nail in the physical coffin. However, attacking those who give a review is really quite mad.

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lilock3
25/11/2019 01:01:28 pm

Unfortunately this is just a fact of life. I see it happen all the time, in and out of gaming...

Reminds me in particular of a few years back when I posted in a forum thread about PAL vs NTSC N64 games. I stated my personal preference for the PAL version of Ocarina of Time (I own both PAL and NTSC carts) due to the slightly higher resolution being more beneficial to me in a relatively slow paced exploration-based game than the NTSC version's slightly higher frame rate. (The PAL game is a decent conversion, running full-screen and near enough full-speed, certainly not abysmally slowed down like Mario 64 and the other N64 launch window PAL conversions.) Cue people telling me that I clearly didn't know what I was talking about, my telly must be broken and that anyone who says he/she prefers a PAL game to an NTSC one is a total idiot.

There was one chap in particular who didn't address me directly, but instead wrote about me in the 3rd person - explaining to the forum that I had obviously never even played on a real N64 and that I'd only experienced emulators. Of course he described himself as "the expert" on N64 games and had spent hundreds replacing every PAL game in his collection with the NTSC equivalents and could categorically state that not one PAL version could ever be considered superior (or even preferable) to it's NTSC counterpart. He insisted that every single PAL N64 had massive borders - something that I could easily and factually counter.

I responded politely - "Oh that's weird. That's not what I'm seeing." - and posted screencaps from my PAL and NTSC games to give a true comparison. Inevitably, that post was completely ignored.

I could give so many more examples of people attacking me when they perceive something that I have said to be contradicting their beliefs. I very much form and hold my own opinions based on first-hand experience rather than online hearsay and the accepted wisdom. As a result I always try to tread carefully and respectfully when airing them, but it's amazing how threatening even that can be to some people. I've traditionally tried to keep a low profile online as I just don't need or want the aggravation...

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
25/11/2019 05:18:46 pm

Christ. I have stopped frequenting places where similar bores insist on inserting themselves into most tenuously related conversations, just so they can air their views yet again on how everyone else is wrong.

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LunarLoony link
27/11/2019 08:40:18 am

If it's any consolation, the PAL version of Team Buddies on PlayStation is superior to NTSC as well. You are not alone!

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MENTALIST
25/11/2019 01:08:26 pm

Somewhat topically, I got an email from Microsoft last week, saying I was approved for the XCloud Beta, so I've been having a go at streaming using a pad clipped to my phone.

My experiences are definitely mixed. At home, Soulcalibur 6 seems to play perfectly well, I was very impressed by it (although not so much by the game itself, which seems to have changed in look or feel little since 4 on Xbox 360, the last one I played). Yoku's Island Express seemed to play acceptably, although the graphics struggled to keep up a bit, when I was pinging around on the beeline.

Forza Horizon 4, on the other hand, was severely impacted by input lag. I was trying to do a speed zone challenge, and it just wasn't possible. Once I got dressed, went downstairs and tried it on the actual Xbox I managed it. There is a lot of contrast in the feel of the game.

The overall effect is very similar to using the console streaming from a Windows laptop. I suspect this indicates the main problem is the dickiness of WiFi, although I have got quite a fancy, supposedly "Gaming" Asus router, which seems much better in general than the ISP-supplied one I replaced it with.

I tried it at my work, on the shared-office-building Wifi, and it didn't work at all. When I switched to 4G, it functioned but had up to several seconds of lag.

I'm inclined to believe these systems could work well, if you plugged them into ethernet on a decent connection, but if you're doing that, the only benefit is the saving of install time, and I don't think that's enough to win people over on its own, weighed against the higher price, and smaller library of Stadia's games.

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Kara Van Park
25/11/2019 01:31:28 pm

Personally, I'd like to see games go down the Spotify route where we pay a subscription and the developers generate revenue from how long they can get people playing the game, either by the game's longevity or adding additional content.

If we're downloading games rather than getting some sellable item, I'm not as keen on committing £30+ on it.

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Trouser
26/11/2019 12:56:16 pm

Except musicians make practically nothing from Spotify and other similar platforms. Great for the consumer, terrible for the artists.

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David Heslop
25/11/2019 02:21:18 pm

Interesting article. I fear you may be attracting more anger from the Stadia-haters.

I have to say, I'm not taken with Stadia, but that's more because of the price and the feature-set than the technology. I mean, I always expected it to work, I just thought it was going to be some kind of "tenner a month for a library of games" Netflix-style affair. It all feels very woolly and expensive to me, but then I am from Yorkshire. I've read with detached interest the technical take-downs on Digital Foundry, and I can sorta see why some people are a bit annoyed if it's an upscaled 1080p image instead of "true 4K", but, well... I dunno. I guess tech specs don't bother me that much. And I do wonder if maybe it shouldn't have been aimed so much at the "hardcore", as it feels more like something someone with less time on their hands to analyse a frame-rate might dip in and enjoy.

I'll never understand technological fanaticism, though. I think I more-or-less grew out of that when I traded my Amiga for a PC. PCs have pretty much always been "better" than consoles, so I never felt jealous of my mates and their PlayStations or whatever, but at the same time I was able to look at, say, GoldenEye or Zelda and think they were really good games. Similarly, I've had an Xbox One since launch, and for how I use it and the games I play, I've never regretted the decision and absolutely love the console. I don't care if the PS4 is "better", and I had to put up with years of comments under every gaming article telling me my choice was mistaken and I'd backed the wrong horse, despite thoroughly enjoying playing through the likes of Halo 5 and Forza Horizon 2.

Which brings me to another point. My issue with Stadia is more about the offering than the tech. Which is why I'm way, way more excited about Xcloud. Microsoft has hundreds of games ready to go, and the thought of it being included with (or an addendum to) an existing Game Pass subscription makes it feel a lot more palatable. I really want to try game streaming, and I'm glad you're enjoying it, but for me the time just ain't right yet.

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A. Lurker
25/11/2019 03:11:19 pm

I think some of the problem is that while Stadia is worse than a high-end console and/or PC, the upfront cost for an early adopter is closer to a plain ol' PS4 or Xbox One (assuming you have a fast and low latency connection, which may be a big ask for some). Compared to one of those, Stadia is probably better, but the marketing positioned it as a high-end competitor when it isn't ATM.

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znidz
25/11/2019 04:02:47 pm

It's so strange that there are so many young men (generally) out in the world (generally developed world) that seem to have enough energy to expend on something so inherently pointless.

These are young men in the prime of their lives choosing to ferociously attack someone over some pointless game thing.

I think it kind of proves that western capitalism has won a "culture victory" as the only thing left to care about from a position of such comfort and privalege is pointless game stuff.

Maybe it's just the internet makes it so easy and has so little consequence. You can go nuts on twitter for 5 mins then move on with your day.
But then Biffo used to get hate letters from furious Amiga users and they would have had to have made the effort to write a letter, put a stamp on it and walk to the postbox.

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Kara Van Park
25/11/2019 09:02:16 pm

They're still doing that and still refusing to admit the stamp is an outdated format.

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Peter Duncan off Blue Peter
25/11/2019 04:26:53 pm

Yeah, but how much did google pay you to write this article loooooooooooooooooooolz

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Johnc
25/11/2019 04:37:11 pm

The long-form writing that the web allows is great when you think about it. I can't imagine how you'd have explained cognitive dissonance to Amiga owners back in the day.

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Carlos Nightman
25/11/2019 05:09:22 pm

With a Reveal-O

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HdE
25/11/2019 04:44:58 pm

Good read, this.

Google Stadia can get in the sea as far as I'm concerned. It charts a direction for the games industry that I'm personally not happy with, and as much as some folks will ominously say 'but it's the future!' it's not something I ever want to support.

But what you'll never find me doing is attacking anyone who says it works for them, and they're happy with it.

I despair of the fact that video games are one of the most sophisticated entertainment mediums available to the public, and yet the folks who play them are so often capable of such brainless comments as the ones shown here.

Mind you, with events of recent months, it shouldn't really surprise me.

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Carlos Nightman
25/11/2019 04:57:40 pm

0 Comments? That'll change once Twitter gets a hold of this. Of course the naysayers may not read the article. In any case I don't care about the Stadia - if it works, great! The wrinkles will get ironed out and presumably there will be competition to improve matters further. I've always been a bit of a 'I love my shelf babies' but I'm straying further and further away from that, because streaming (whatever the medium), is easier. And we all want what's easier. If it reaches the point that this becomes the norm and I find myself really disagreeing with it or unable to get the best from the system, well then I'll just stick with whatever hardware and games I still own - I'm not going to weep about keeping up with the rest of the world for my little hobby.

But yeah, Dissonance and Bias are very strange - you see it on every board and post and forum on every site in the world. To be honest I've always liked being told I'm wrong and being challenged, but I fully understand people railing against it and taking offence. Part of that is who I've grown to be over the years, and I suspect part of it is some cultural in-built belief that I probably AM wrong, about everything, given the hundreds of years of abuse and beatings and crap weather us poor Northern Irelanders have been subjected to.

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CdrJameson
25/11/2019 06:37:10 pm

Perhaps it's because it challenges their notion that they'll actually notice 75ms of lag.
You really, really won't.

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Nonny
25/11/2019 06:51:28 pm

Good and fair article, but did ya really have to leave the Twitter handles unblurred out?

There's having your opinion, and then there's setting people up to get attacked for having their own opinions and what not, and that's kind of pathetic.

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Random Reviewer
11/12/2019 10:54:58 pm

In all fairness though, those peeps did decide to post their opinions on a public platform, presumably in good faith, and so should be aware that they may attract unfavourable attention from people outside their immediate in-group. I also don't see the Digi community as the brigading type, but I might be wrong.

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Starbuck
25/11/2019 07:51:56 pm

I blame Putin.

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Chris Dyson
25/11/2019 08:16:46 pm

Hardly surprising QVC are negative re. Stadia. They're probably on the verge of launching their own game streaming service. For grannies.

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squits link
25/11/2019 08:37:35 pm

As Michael Barrymore once said on Strike It Lucky

"What is a Moc-Moc not?"

and the audience responded

"A Moc-Moc"

I think this applies to everything you said.

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Voodoo76
26/11/2019 12:33:14 pm

I remember that episode, ah Michael what a legend. Comically chatting up old grannies, loved by everyone before going home to a drug fuelled swingers party.

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XXXL Wendel
25/11/2019 10:44:18 pm

I think one factor is that a fear that the new technology will restrict people's access to old ones. People are desperate for Stadia not to succeed, because if Stadia does succeed that might mean we can't own copies of games anymore, so they don't mind spreading some misinformation to reduce its chances a bit - and sadly part of that includes attacking the reputations of people who like it.

Of course, actually if there's still a bunch of people who do want to own games, the opportunity will still exist because someone will be able to make money from selling them. So I think the fear is unfounded. Spotify exists, but old farts like me can still keep adding to our CD collections!

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Lummox60N
26/11/2019 12:30:20 pm

It's change, though, isn't it?
In the main people aren't willing to embrace change, even if it IS for the better. And the kind of people who get their jollies sitting, alone, in a darkened room, swearing at strangers thousands of miles away whilst simultaneously screaming at their mother because she's once again failed to tidy their squalid room or pick up the festering laundry from their mountainous floordrobe are, I find, less willing than most.
I suspect the problem is, at its heart, the egalitarianism of it all. There's no chance to sneer at someone else's set up because it lacks liquid nitrogen cooling.
Google's taken away the elitism, the slightly dark, deeply secret, uber-nerdlery, at the core of interweb gamery, hasn't it? Simply by handing everyone the same set-up for the games and telling them to get on with it.

If I didn't live in the arse-end of nowhere, with the attendant variables in broadband, I'd be giving it serious consideration.
Well, if I didn't have Pokemon Sword to work through, and Animal Crossing on the horizon, I would.

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Super Bad Advice
26/11/2019 01:53:40 pm

As Mr B. mentioned it, my experience was a bit less stellar - so much so, I've sent mine back.

I genuinely wanted it to work, and I had what Google said would be more than sufficient for 1080p gaming. But on wired ethernet/chromecast I got stutters every few seconds, and on wifi it was considerably worse.

On the flipside, and somewhat unexpectedly, when playing in a chrome browser on my Mac on wifi, with other internet-hoovering apps running at the same time, the performance was more or less stutter-free, albeit notably lower resolution. So I can only conclude it's not just about raw speed but about what it's trying to serve you as well - if you're further from Google's servers (I live in a small town in the West Midlands), that round trip is probably the killer when it's trying to dish up both high-res visuals AND keep gameplay synced up. With less data to push, it can still cope. So if you were looking at Stadia because you travel a lot, as long as you're not expecting high-res on the go it may be worth a look.

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biffo biscuit skin
27/11/2019 01:35:14 am

That shitposts clowning on stadia like "noone is having fun on stadia" or "no one on earth at all enjoys stadia for real" by a man calling himself professional retard got you this worked up proves you have thin, biscuity skin

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Anonymous Coward
27/11/2019 02:08:03 am

Biffo, it was me posting as you with the obscenities. It wasn't intended to be a personal attack on yourself or your commenters & it wasn't for any allegiance for the Stadia, honestly I don't care either way about the Stadia. It was an immature act of pranking that I thought was funny at the time but I realise now was a really nasty thing for me to do. There's no excuse for my behaviour, I'm very sorry and can only apologise & I promise I won't do it again.

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Kara Van Park
28/11/2019 02:34:44 am

Just had a thought. When judging Google on how well they've rolled the thing out, consider how Microsoft launched Xbox Live.

The original Xbox was touted as being online gaming ready, took at least a year after people bought the machine to start Beta and then CHARGED you for a series of limited demos.

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Motorcycle mania
28/11/2019 01:53:02 pm

Yeah but if Google wanted a shill, Mr Biffo would be the last possible option, surely? I mean Beanus would have been a better choice.

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