- Google is shutting down Stadia,
Google's big bet on gaming, it's game over.
- [Man] It's game over, man. It's game over.
- How do one of the richest
and most powerful companies in the world
fail at a big launch again?
They just have the most resources in the world.
They own search, they own Android, they own YouTube.
They should be able to launch a gaming platform
so how the heck did they fail?
That's what we're gonna look at today.
This is "Raw Startup."
I'm the founder of Vivino, the world's largest wine app
and community with over 60 million users all over the world.
In my over 20 years as a founder
I've seen a lot and I've learned a lot.
One way to learn is to look at these failures.
There are definitely lessons to be learned.
I've done a few of these videos.
One on WeWork, it was definitely not boring.
One on Quibi and one on CNN+.
In gaming I actually did one about the good old Duke Nukem.
Today we look at why Stadia failed
but also we look at what Google could have done differently.
How could Google have been a better founder for Stadia?
With that, let's get started.
Number five, Google being Google.
When you build a platform like this
you need a lot of partners, specifically gaming publishers.
Gaming publishers that are willing to invest
in this new platform.
For them to believe in that, they need to believe
that Google's gonna keep investing in it
and this is where Google's track record is horrible.
They keep launching things and shutting them down
even things that people love.
Here are some quick examples.
Google Talk, Picasa, Google Wave, Play Music, Google Video.
Google killed so many projects
that somebody made a website called Killed by Google.
It is a crazy long list of products
and projects killed by Google.
They say they're committed.
- People have this fear that it's like,
"I'm gonna buy this and Google's gonna shut it down"
or "I'm not gonna have access to it"
or "I wanna be able to download it" and that's-
- [Man] Google is incredibly committed to this platform-
- Yeah-
- I'm personally dedicated to this platform.
- Well, maybe not really.
This is not a good look for Google.
Nobody wants to partner with Google
when they say they're supportive
and then end up shutting things down way too early.
I mean, next time you should probably just say,
"Okay, we're doing a 10 year commitment on this platform"
or else nobody's ever gonna partner with them.
And again, Google's partners are in trouble.
They feel blindsided with what happened with Stadia.
Okay, so what would be a different approach?
Google has to become a credible partner.
Google probably needs to spend the next 20 years
rebuilding their credibility
for anyone to work with them again.
Google just can't be someone you can't work with
because they shut down projects all the time
leaving their partners in the dust.
Basically, they need to launch fewer things
and stick with them.
Number four, no killer app.
This has always been true.
Any platform needs a killer app.
Stadia had no killer app or platform exclusives,
as they would call it in the gaming industry.
Xbox has Halo, PlayStation has "Spider-Man."
Nintendo has all kinds of different Mario titles.
There were no meaningful platform exclusives on Stadia.
Gamers needed a reason to go to Stadia,
a game they couldn't find anywhere else,
a real reason to go to Stadia.
And what could be a different approach here?
In February of 2021,
Google shut down their internal
Stadia Games and Entertainment,
their own game building studio.
They were supposed to release exclusive titles for Stadia
but Google shut them down.
The solution here is simple,
have your own studio and build your own exclusives.
"No, no, no," says Google, they shut down their own studio.
This was a big mistake.
It was like cutting an arm off Stadia.
They should have kept the studio,
built their own Triple A games exclusive to Stadia,
maybe even hold back the release of Stadia
till they had a proper exclusive.
Number three, too expensive.
Stadia was expensive, very, very expensive.
First, you need to pay a monthly subscription
of €10 or 10 US dollars.
If you want the Stadia controller
you need to pay another 129 US dollars or Euros.
With all that paid
it's now time to pay full price for the games.
They could be all the way up to $60 or Euros.
This makes no sense at all.
It's like paying for Netflix every month
and then on top of that
you have to pay for every movie you watch on Netflix.
I mean, that just wouldn't fly.
It's like you pay a subscription to be able to pay more.
What's a different approach here?
Lower the prices. It's pretty simple.
Number two, no momentum.
Momentum is about getting the ball rolling
and then keep pushing to keep the ball rolling.
I think Google did okay on getting the ball rolling
and then I did the most horrible job
in keeping the ball rolling.
They just didn't keep pushing.
In 2020, a Redditer noticed
that Google said nothing, released nothing for 40 days,
nothing for 40 days, just silence.
(air whooshing) (tumbleweed rolling)
♪ Say something, I'm giving up on you. ♪
- This is just the worst thing you can do
when you're trying to keep momentum building a community.
This will just kill momentum
and everyone in the community will just lose faith.
When you launch a platform like this, all eyes are on you.
That's everyone in the gaming industry
but also all the gamers.
They are looking to see if Google is truly committed or not.
That's when you need to show everyone
that you're totally committed
by releasing all the time and constantly communicating.
So what could be a different approach here?
You need constant movement and constant momentum.
This means releasing all the time
and constant communication.
40 days of tumbleweed is not gonna fly.
All eyes are on you.
You have to show them that there is constant momentum.
We are at number one.
Before we get to that, I do startup videos,
I do a bit of these failure videos too.
If you like this kind of stuff,
do press the subscribe button.
(drum rolling)
Number one, flawed product.
Yes, we are at the core of it.
The product just wasn't good enough.
Basically, the product just wasn't as good as the consults.
Consults have a better user experience,
they are faster, more stable, work anywhere
and they work with unstable internet connections.
Also, anyone who likes to play already has a console.
There was no real reason to change to Stadia
because the product wasn't better.
Another thing that limited the supply of games on Stadia
was it was based on Linux.
This meant that game developers had to invest heavily
in converting their games to Stadia.
With the lack of trust in Google already,
this made things even worse
and most games never made it to Stadia.
So what is a different approach to this core, core thing?
Before they launched
they should have made sure the technology was ready.
Google was not the first to try this.
All the way back in 2009,
OnLive was making a big bet on cloud gaming.
Obviously, the technology was not ready back in 2009.
I believe in releasing early, I believe in releasing an MVP,
but if you go into a very, very competitive
and mature market, your product cannot be in beta.
Your product has to be very competitive or you will lose.
Google did not have that.
Remember, you're building a community,
a community of gamers, a community of developers,
you need to keep them happy.
Even Microsoft knew that 30 years ago.
- Developers, developers, developers,
developers, developers, developers.
- You have to release fast and communicate all the time.
Keep those gamers and developers happy.
In the end, they built a product that didn't work well
for an audience that didn't want it,
by a company that nobody trusted to build it.
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Thank you very much for watching "Raw Startup."
Now stop watching, and go build something.
(upbeat music)