STORY: PAX & Penny arcade co-creator gets hands on time with Google Stadia game platform. He admits before he was a skeptic, but now thinks “it feels magical”
THE LEGEND
Mike (Gabe) Krahulik is a hero to many. As artist, co-founder and one of the witty writers for Penny Arcade (and Penny Arcade Expo — PAX) Gabe is looked at as a champion of indie game development and promotion. A big PC/console enthusiasts, it’s not surprising that at the proposal of Google Stadia, a sole cloud gaming platform, Gabe was a huge skeptic.
THE CONVERSATION
Fast forward several months later, on the heels of Stadia’s 1 year anniversary, and things are much different. Gabe is now very favorable towards the platform, and a self-proclaimed “fan”. His transition is detailed in a very open and transparent interview done by Bill aka runjumpstomp of the Stadiacast Youtube channel. See below:
THE TRANSITION
How did this change come about? Well, Stadia held an online open invitation to the community titled “Good Stuff” . It was a campaign aimed at re-introducing casuals, PC gamers and former skeptics to the state of the platform now. It consisted of three days of short tailored videos, capped off with a different playable demo each day. Each demo was targeted for the aforementioned demographics.
Gabe was highly interested in trying the Immortals Fenyx Rising Stadia demo. After trying it, he was pleasantly surprised at how much he enjoyed it. Gabe has since purchased more games like Tom Clancy’s the Division and Doom Eternal to play. He says there are moments that the performance is so good, he forgets he’s on a cloud service instead of a dedicated device.
Gabe admits that due to the restrictive nature of his internet, he may run into occasional issues. However, he states for the most part the play is “smooth”. He’s even called it “magical”.
THE HONESTY
During the interview, the negative media coverage of Stadia was mentioned. When asked why more of the mainstream game media aren’t echoing the same sentiments as him, he’s very candid. Gabe questions if Google has done a good enough job ensuring the media sees the platform’s capabilities. Even more frankly, he questions if the media is even trying to find positive stories such as his on Stadia.
It’s a very eye opening interview. Many may consider it of the most important ones done for the platform. As Stadia reaches it’s 1 year anniversary, we will continue to watch for similar stories.
Source: RunJumpStomp | StadiaCast | Stadia Community Blog |
