Social distancing is vital, but staying home for long periods can be difficult, understanding that Google has announced that it will be making its gaming service, Stadia, free for the next two months, according to an official release on its website.
This comes after a day after Sony revealed its PlayStation 5 controller. Google Stadia Vice President and GM Phil Harrison says in an official post that,”Video games can be a valuable way to socialise with friends and family when you’re stuck at home, so we’re giving gamers in 14 countries free access to Stadia Pro for two months. This is starting today and rolling out over the next 48 hours.”
Which games are available on Stadia?
Anyone who signs up will get two free months of Stadia Pro with instant access to nine games, including GRID, Destiny 2: The Collection, and Thumper. One can purchase even more games on the store, which will remain to play even if the user cancels their Stadia Pro subscription. If a user is already a paid Stadia Pro subscriber, they won’t charge them for the next two months. After that, Stadia Pro is $9.99 a month, but you can opt out of your subscription at any time.
Here’s the list of available games:
- Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
- Attack on Titan 2: Final Battle
- Borderlands 3
- Darksiders Genesis
- Destiny 2: The Collection
- Doom Eternal
- DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE 2
- Farming Simulator 19
- FINAL FANTASY XV
- Football Manager 2020
- Ghost Recon Breakpoint
- GRID
- GYLT
- Just Dance 2020
- Kine
- Metro Exodus
- Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Videogame 3
- Mortal Kombat 11
- NBA 2K20
- Rage 2
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration
- SAMURAI SHODOWN
- Spitlings
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
- Thumper
- Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint
- Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
- Trials Rising
- Wolfenstein: Youngblood
Why suddenly Google Stadia gaming service is free?
With the recent initiative by Google seems that the company is not only aiming to seize a market opportunity but also trying to extend its lead in cloud gaming over rivals like Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia, which are building their own platforms. Earlier Stadia was publicly released on November 2019 for selected countries and received a mixed reception from reviewers. Some say the image quality was “drab”,where some preferring to play Destiny 2 on a Chromebook instead of a larger gaming laptop. Not only that some even pointed out that service’s pricing model, is unfavorable compared to subscription services such as Xbox Game Pass, adding to that the service was incapable of playing games at 4K resolutions: Red Dead Redemption 2 was found to only run at 1440p. Destiny 2 ran at only 1080p struggled to maintain a consistent 60 frames per second, however, Google claimed that their test of the game on Chromecast only outputted a solid 30 FPS, while a test on the Chrome browser was an unstable 60 FPS that dropped frequently.
Towards the end of January 2020, Stadia users expressed concern about Google’s non-communicative stance on Stadia, outside of its monthly free game additions; these users were concerned about planned features that were to be available in the next few months from Google’s initial timeline but yet have been discussed further, such as 4K streaming resolution support. A Google community manager had been following these discussions and expressed sympathy that users have been waiting for information, and stated that there is news that they could not yet discuss but will be able to soon.
Also during lockdown, people are spending long hours in gaming like never before, considering that Google has taken the opportunity like all the other gaming companies to launch deals to feed the locked down users with more content. Earlier in November when Stadia launched it included a Stadia controller too along with a Chromecast Ultra, three months of Pro service, and an additional three months of Pro service to gift to a friend. In addition to that since a day before when much anticipated PlayStation 5 controller Dualsense was revealed(which has been absorbed well with excitement among users) Google being the attention seeker had to come with catchy marketing strategy. And guess what? Who doesn’t like freebies? The service is currently competing with Sony’s PlayStation Now service, Nvidia’s GeForce Now, and Microsoft’s Project xCloud.
We have mentioned earlier as well that there have been a lot of speculations that the service was incapable of playing games at 4K resolutions and was found to only run at 1440p. And now Google has shared on an official post that, “To reduce load on the internet further, we’re working toward a temporary feature that changes the default screen resolution from 4k to 1080p. The vast majority of people on a desktop or laptop won’t notice a significant drop in gameplay quality, but you can choose your data usage options in the Stadia app.” That is where it completes the circle of speculation.
