- Imagine if you could stream games on YouTube
but invite your viewers to play with you
by just clicking a button.
(laughs) Believe it or not,
that's a thing you can do right now.
- [Man] vidIQ. - [Woman] vidIQ.
- [Man] vidIQ.com.
- Hello, I'm Dan, and this is vidIQ,
the YouTube tool, academy, and channel
to help to educate you along your YouTube journey.
And I have a question for you today.
Do you use Google Stadia to play games?
And if not, tell us why.
In case you aren't familiar with Stadia,
it's a relatively new gaming platform
actually made by Google.
And it's meant to sort of be
the "Netflix" of games, if you will.
What's really unique about Stadia is that regardless
of what kind of computer you have,
you're actually just streaming the games
from their systems to whatever device you're using.
These devices can range from being a phone to a tablet
to even a Chromebook.
All you really need is a compatible device
and a decent internet connection.
Currently, you only need to pay $10 a month
for access to Stadia's game library,
and they also have a store
where you can buy more premium titles.
The concept here is pretty cool.
To answer my own question, though,
I personally haven't been too mindful of Stadia
because I haven't been very captivated
by their games library,
although I do feel like over time, it will improve.
If you're a YouTuber who happens to be interested
in streaming Stadia games to your channel,
you have the option to invite people
to join you in real time.
This feature is known as Stadia Crowd Play,
and it's baked into YouTube right now.
There's no Steam friends list to invite people to.
There's no IP addresses to share.
You simply start up your game, open up the queue,
and one by one, your viewers can line up
to play the game with you.
An additional way for your audience
to participate in your gameplay would be Crowd Choice.
This allows you as the broadcaster to start a survey,
and using it, your audience can now interact
with the game in the moment while you're live
and dictate what happens next.
As cool as these crowd participation features are,
they won't be without limitations,
the biggest one being developers.
They actually have to implement this
into the games they make.
So obviously from the broadcaster's perspective,
you need to be choosing games
that have Crowd Play enabled as a feature
if, of course, it's something you want to take advantage of.
And then from the viewer's perspective,
they need to have access to Stadia
as well as the game itself.
These limitations speak to a larger issue, and that is,
are enough people playing on Stadia?
Considering Stadia is so new,
I'm personally worried the answer to that question,
at least right now, is no.
But I'll be curious to see your feedback in the comments.
Not only does Stadia need to attract us as gamers,
but they also need to attract developers
to make games for their platform.
I did pick up a free trial of Stadia to make this video.
And while there are a couple of games
that I genuinely had fun playing,
I'm just not sure I'm ready at this time
to commit to yet another $10-a-month subscription service.
So once I finish what I'm playing, I likely won't renew,
at least not until more games are released.
We have to remember, though, that we are on the cusp
of a new Xbox and a new PlayStation
getting ready to drop this year.
So with the next generation of consoles upon us,
Stadia has a fantastic opportunity here.
If they can get a couple
of next-gen titles on their platform,
this could be a fantastic alternative
for people who just aren't ready to spend money
on a PlayStation or an Xbox right now.
So with all that being said,
I do believe that this is a platform that could take off.
I mean, anything that's gonna let me
play "Red Dead Redemption 2" on a smartphone
is something worth looking into.
This makes Stadia super accessible.
And as an added bonus, Google is weaving it
into their other products, like YouTube.
In the grand scheme of things,
Stadia is very much in its infancy
when you compare it to Sony or Xbox or Nintendo.
So I think they have plenty of time to expand their library,
optimize their service, and really solidify themselves
as a leader in the gaming space.
I think for a lot of gaming channels here on YouTube,
what this really comes down to, though,
is the selection of games.
So assuming that Stadia has the games
you're interested in playing on your channel,
is Crowd Play something that you think you would use?
Let us know in the comments.
And hey, don't forget to subscribe for more videos,
just like this one, here at vidIQ all the time.
We'll see you in the next one.