Google Stadia really attempted to make a big splash when it launched into the market. At first, the announcement did turn plenty of heads. There was some confusion in the beginning as players had initially thought that a fee would grant access to countless video games to stream. In a way, this was going to be the Netflix of gaming service, but that wasn’t correct. While gamers can still stream games without having to ensure that their system can run the game, you’re still having to pay for these games.
Alongside the launch of the Google Stadia was a service fee that would cost $9.99 per month. This would grant you several features such as 4K support, but there was a promise of a free tier shortly after launch. Now, a new interview with Google executive Phil Harrison has revealed that the free tier is coming this year in the upcoming months. Unfortunately, that is as narrow as the executive got so we don’t really know just when the free tier is coming per se.
There is also a lot of issues we’ve seen a rise from the service. For instance, players are forced into playing the game which would be locked behind Google’s services, likewise, there doesn’t appear to be a very big catalog of video game titles. This will hopefully change soon as Google will reportedly have over a hundred games added in this year alone. Likewise, it seems that there will be a small handful exclusive as well which may help the service out. Despite this, there are plenty of gamers rather upset over the lack of content.
The outrage over the lack of content actually gained the attention of Google. According to Google’s statements, the reason for the lack of content and announcements is that the company is not pushing publishers into making the announcements. Really, it’s left to the publishers on when their video game titles will get announced. Perhaps adding the free tier will help not only announce new games but bring in a larger player base.