Castle Magus

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The only way I could see any devs being taken by surprise by this would be if those devs were literally blind, literally deaf, literally dumb (as in can't talk), and figuratively dumb (as in fucking stupid as hell).

Also, Google does not deserve any kudos for giving refunds. That's like giving kudos to every human who manages to successfully navigate through a crowd of people without tripping and falling against every person they encounter.

As sorely tempted as I am to say "And nothing of value was lost" in response to this, I won't say it, because those games may very well be fair-to-middling or even possibly good, but I will say that I've never heard of a single damn one of them prior to this article. And I will also fucking say that these developers/publishers dug their own fucking graves by agreeing to Stadia exclusivity, if this does indeed kill their games entirely. It is utterly goddamned asinine that platform exclusivity still exists in the year 2022, outside of proprietary software created by the people who own the platforms themselves, and even then it's still pretty shitty.

Yeah, I remember this back when it was called OnLive. No fucking thanks. Yes, I'm aware it's not exactly the same thing, but it's plenty close enough that I still greet it with a big, fat "No fucking thanks."

But because this is Google, I'm sure it will probably start off like gangbusters. And then, after a year or five or so, it will probably end up like everything else. ¬_¬

In any case, like I said, no fucking thanks. Even if I were still in the habit of giving much of a shit about the modern video game industry at all, I'd still be giving this the hardest of passes. I already posted about how the digital future of video game distribution was looking pretty damn shitty and grim. Well, Stadia and all of this other cloud/steamed gaming horseshit is just like that, except hopped up on steroids and methamphetamine and PCP, sprinting headlong toward a mile-high cliff, at the bottom of which lies a big pile of rusty razor wire, glass shards, toxic waste, necrotizing fasciitis, and fire. That's my take on it, anyway, based on observation of everything that has come before up to now.

Now, admittedly, I'm not a certified, professional soothsayer, so maybe I'm just being a jaded, cynical, out-of-touch stick-in-the-mud for no good reason. We'll see, I guess, one way or the other.

(But then, I'm the guy who is still, probably futilely, wishing for another huge, widespread industry crash, so what do I know. Of course, I'm not the only one who is predicting another imminent crash, though they may not be actively hoping for it in the same way I am.)