2016 was an alright year in gaming if we look back on it. Doom released, and it was the classic with all the shiny modern bits attached. Dark Souls III released, much to my sleeping patterns’ detriment; who are we kidding, I never had one. Dishonored 2, Titanfall 2, Final Fantasy XV, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Stardew Valley, Darkest Dungeon, Superhot, Oxenfree, Persona 5, Planet Coaster, Ratchet & Clank (reboot), and many more released. It was no 2015, but it was a bloody fantastic year for gaming. It was also the inception of commercial VR booming.

Everyone was in on VR; it was clear the race had begun and abruptly stopped when the HTC Vive released. Some, like Oculus (bought out by Facebook) were nice but don’t have the room-scale versatility. Others like the PS VR were and still are, a nightmare to set up perfectly. I will say, the PS VR is one of the more comfortable variants, but the Vive had cracked the code for something feeling just right (minus all the vomiting at first).

Some sought a large market scale alternative; Oculus released “Oculus Go” in 2018 and were small scale comparably. Meanwhile, South Korean company Samsung were also pushing into these quick and easy alternatives. One company in particular, Google (you may have heard of them), ran into the arms of these quick and easy options for many mobile customers. They were one of the early adopters for your phone to be the VR headset.

Google Daydream, a $99 USD take on the nearly one thousand dollar (or more) PC alternatives kicked down the door put in place by Google Cardboard. It was a quick, cheap, and dirty solution for those who wanted to experience VR’s vomit-inducing nonsense but didn’t want to purchase one of the three Virtual Boy’s left in the world after the red death. 

The story falls down the hole from there sadly. Google, discontinued the app earlier this year and this week stopped shipping all together with their new Google Pixel 4 phone. In the statement by a Google representative, they stated, “There hasn’t been the broad consumer or developer adoption we had hoped, and we’ve seen decreasing usage overtime of the Daydream View headset.” Now for existing customers, the software and hardware will still work as intended for the time being. However, you can’t purchase new hardware or software.

I think you can see where I’m about to go with this: Google Stadia is running towards us like an angry toddler about to head-butt us in the genitals. To put it lightly, I’m not enthralled by this “advancement” in tech that is possibly a little too early for itself. I’m mostly not interested in it as I have issues with existing tech and internet connectivity. I don’t need another thing that is just as useless. Yes, I did just call the PS4 download system useless.

If you don’t know, Google Stadia is “cloud gaming,” which is to say that it is a streaming service for your games. A bit like Netflix, but instead of just spreading fecal matter across the screen, it is putting a turd in your hands and expecting you to press into it. It is not a delectable thought once I put it in such defecation-based terms. Though some are willing to give this big brown curl on the carpet the benefit of the doubt, I’m clearly not.

I’m not because you will be buying into a service that is already on shaky ground, requires still purchasing games at their full price after subscribing, and Google’s propensity to particularly plunge downward on the products they produce. Before you think I’m wearing a tinfoil hat, dressing gown, and socks with holes in them as gloves, may I point out the site “killed by Google.” It is a site about everything Google has killed since about 2006 onwards when Google Writely, a Google word processor, died after only one year. There are over one hundred and eighty apps, services, and hardware that Google has killed/are going to soon.

Google are the mad scientists that are just throwing everything both at the wall and sitting under that wall catching anything that falls off. There are lots of social media projects that the company has dropped, Remember Google+? That was stabbed in a back alley several months ago. YouTube Gaming, shot in a “gangland shoot out” as reported by a right-wing leaning news network. Remember when you could message people on YouTube? That died of an undisclosed disease a few weeks ago.

So when Google Stadia falls to pieces in several months or two years from now, remember that I sent you the warning. It isn’t your fault you ignored the many warning signs, the nuclear explosion that is the idea of a game streaming service, and the disease that’s causing you to cough up blood… Oh, wait! It is. Daydream’s death is just another warning of the issues with Stadia. I expect it to fall as quickly as Writely or YouTube Gaming.

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