Firstly , let me say, I don't believe that Stadia and GeForce Now are actually comparable services. They are different in too many ways to make a direct comparison. Yet people compare them all the time. They are both cloud gaming services but that's where the similarity's end.
I have been gaming on stadia since it's launch in 2019 and, although there are many reasons people tell me it's a terrible service and not to use it, one that comes up often is the business model. For some reason it is one that people fail to get their head around.
People say it is not worth it because you have to buy the games AND pay for a subscription. Which just isn't true. The subscription is optional just like it is on PlayStation or Xbox. It gives you extra functionality, up to 4K resolution and Dolby surround sound, and a number of free games to claim each month. But if you're happy gaming at 1080 you could just buy games and play for free.
As happy as I am with the service that Stadia provides, I do like to try new things. And I'm not the kind of guy who would say 1 thing is the best without trying the other.
So I recently decided to try GFN. I haven't tried it up until now as I didn't have a PC or any PC games so the service just wasn't for me. To try it before putting money in to it I got some free to play games and signed up to the free tier.
When i posted that on Twitter, people, who use the service happily, replied telling me that the free tier is not worth while because of the queues and the 1 hour game time. I was advised to get the most out of GFN i should pay for the RTX 3080 tier which is £89.99 for 6 months. Granted that does give you the best graphical performance that's available in gaming. Period. But it still has it's limits. 8 hour game sessions been the main one. Don't get me wrong that's a long time. And as a dad i wouldn't get close to that on a regular basis. The nearest i get is 5 or 6 hours of FIFA when Emma is working late on the weekend. But still. If it's necessary to explain there's a time limit front and centre of the sign up page, there will be people who would reach it I assume.
Although it has been 2 weeks since i signed up to GFN i have yet to have a chance to play a game because each time i try, i end up getting bored of waiting and play something else on a different service. People are right, you do need to pay a subscription for it to be worth while. So i need to buy or claim games and then pay a subscription to play them in the cloud... buy. And Subscribe. Sounds familiar. But is that what people don't like about Stadia?
Seems very hypercritical.
All I want to do is try it to see if it's worth paying £8.99 a month or £90 for 6 months to play pc games on my phone. but the free tier doesn't give you that opportunity.
Compare that to Stadia. You can sign up to a 30 day free trial or Stadia pro and get 50 games (at the time of writing) to try completely free. No charge. There is no queues so you can jump straight in and try it. and you can play for as long as you want without being booted off the game. So you could jump in for free and play Ark: Survival evolved, GRIME, Saints Row IV, heck you could even complete life is strange Remastered before deciding whether or not stadia is for you. COMPLETELY FREE.
And if you do like it, but don't want to subscribe, just buy the game you want to play, and cancel the subscription before paying anything.
OH and if you don't want to buy anything, that's fine too. There are 7 free to play games currently with more on the way. So no subscription. Nothing to purchase. Play for free. Indefinitely.
So, what am I missing?
It seems to me that the thing people don't like about stadia's business model, is not actually how the business model works BUT it is the way GFN works. And that's fine?
Help me out here. Help me understand if I'm missing anything. Because to me this is straight up blind favouritism and an outright hypocrisy. But I could be wrong and i am willing to listen and be proven wrong. My mind is open,