Stadia's 4K gaming claims come back to haunt it in class-action lawsuit

[Jet_ski]

Summary

A class-action lawsuit has been launched against Google Stadia for "unfair and deceptive trade practices" stemming from promises that the Stadia would run games at 4K, and would perform better than the Xbox One X or PlayStation 4 Pro.
 

The 42-page suit targets Google, as well as Doom developer id Software and Destiny's Bungie, stating that all three companies have misled people in some capacity about Stadia's ability to run all games in 4K at 60fps. It was originally filed back in October 2020 but has just gained more attention after being transferred to federal court.

 

id Software was targeted regarding its initial claims of Doom Eternal being playable in true 4K on Stadia, which they later walked back to 1080p at 60fps, or upsampled to 2160p on 4K displays. The suit also named other Doom games available on Stadia and claims that id Software "wrongfully generated millions of dollars of revenue" as a result of the allegedly misleading claims.

 

Quotes

Quote

Bungie was also called out for similar reasons, with the complaint stating that the studio "knew or should have known that Google was making misleading statements about the Stadia Pro subscription plan in that Destiny 2 would not be playable at the 4k 60FPS gameplay that the Stadia Pro service offered, and that consumers were being misled about Destiny 2."

 

My thoughts

This probably one of the most legitimate lawsuits I’ve seen in the gaming industry lately. It’s ridiculous to think developers at Google don’t know that 4K 60fps requires crazy amount of data to be transferred. False/misleading advertising deserves to be punished.
 

Sources

https://www.pcgamer.com/stadias-4k-gaming-claims-come-back-to-haunt-it-in-class-action-lawsuit/

 

https://www.classaction.org/media/shepherd-v-google-llc-et-al.pdf

[Spotty]

5 minutes ago, Jet_ski said:

id Software was targeted regarding its initial claims of Doom Eternal being playable in true 4K on Stadia, which they later walked back to 1080p at 60fps, or upsampled to 2160p on 4K displays. The suit also named other Doom games available on Stadia and claims that id Software "wrongfully generated millions of dollars of revenue" as a result of the allegedly misleading claims.

id software generated millions of dollars in revenue from stadia? How?

[PlayStation 2]

id probably generated about 83 dollars and 46 cents in revenue for porting their shit to Stadia. 

"Millions of dollars" my right asscheek.

[Vanderburg]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

id software generated millions of dollars in revenue from stadia? How?

I don't know what the sales numbers were, but it's probably rooted in the fact that you required a completely new copy, so you had to pay twice if you already owned it before, guaranteeing the extra income.

[Middcore]

Ain't nobody generating millions of dollars in revenue from Stadia.

[TopKitty]

Bad precedent, expect more misleading advertising that avoids hard numbers if this goes through.

 

[Eaglerino]

1 hour ago, huilun02 said:

Sending lawyers to kick a dead horse for money.

 

Only in America

Stadia deserves to be ground into dust and forgotten about for eternity. I wish it would delete itself already

[Beskamir]

3 hours ago, Spotty said:

id software generated millions of dollars in revenue from stadia? How?

My guess, special deals with Google that gave id software grants for using the platform.

[Jet_ski]

3 hours ago, Spotty said:

id software generated millions of dollars in revenue from stadia? How?

Doom Eternal was $59.99 on stadia. Users had to purchase the game to play it there, (even if they already owned it I think). While Stadia sales weren’t great, it’s not inconceivable to think that the popular titles sold thousands of copies. It’s not earth shattering revenues but could be millions.

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Two wrongs does not make anything right

 

Google is killing off Stadia on their own. It doesn't even need to be killed when no one wants to use the service.

I'll disagree. The PS5 and Xbox Series X shortage, along with the GPU shortage in general has made the service the only option for games if your desktop PC doesn't quite meet the performance needed.

 

That said, FPS games are not very good on it. That's the vast majority of "games" that developers produce are FPS or FPS/TPS, which basically do not compress well, and even minor hiccups can ruin the experience of the game.

 

On the other hand, 2D games, perfect use. 3D games that have slow movement. 4x games, RTS, simulations, visual novels and similar that have a lot of static elements, work pretty good. 

 

The worst ? Fighting and Rhythm games. It's difficult to play. At least a FPS game you can shotgun or stealth your way through something where maybe a sniper shot or close-combat would be more fun. 

 

JRPG games are kind of in the middle. Turn-based RPG's that aren't MMORPG's will probably be fine, but action RPG's and current MMORPG's that lean on choreography to play will leave you at a disadvantage with other players who have better connections.

 

That said, I do not believe anyone should pay for games on Stadia if you're paying for Pro. It feels like a joke, that Google hasn't figured out Amazon's business model (eg you pay for prime, you get prime everything (shipping, twitch, tv shows, etc.)) If google knew what it was doing, it would make Google Stadia Pro and Youtube Premium the same service to encourage Youtube users to use Stadia. 

 

I would not recommend Stadia if you already have a gaming PC. There's nothing on Stadia that justifies paying for a Stadia game that you already have on Steam. Honestly it feels like this is the biggest goof Google has made, is not having a partnership with Steam to allow games already purchased on Steam that Stadia versions exist for to run using the Steam license. That would give more people a reason to use Stadia than they do now. Though clearly they wouldn't make any money doing so.

 

[Rym]

23 minutes ago, Kisai said:

I'll disagree. The PS5 and Xbox Series X shortage, along with the GPU shortage in general has made the service the only option for games if your desktop PC doesn't quite meet the performance needed.

 

 

 

GeForce Now.

 

Shadow.

[Kisai]

59 minutes ago, Rym said:

GeForce Now.

 

Shadow.

I'm surprised the Ethereum miners haven't monopolized that too.

[Stahlmann]

This is probably "beating a dead horse." Even in terms of game-streaming stadia is probably the worst option out there. I'd not expect it to last another year before the public announcement of the shutdown.

 

But i agree that developers need to held accountable for false claims. Regardless of the platform this is about.

[lewdicrous]

8 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Sending lawyers to kick a dead horse for money.

 

Only in America

Tbf, the horse had a "kick me" sign on its corpse.

 

 

I wonder if they're gonna choose to settle this out of court, with an undisclosed amount, or if they're gonna try to stall it to make it too expensive for the plaintiffs to hold on to the suit. (They as in the defendants)

[Jet_ski]

9 hours ago, huilun02 said:

You need to be very clear that the circumstance of hardware shortage is not the doing of Google.

 

Stadia has already crumbled due to its failed promises. And no consumer could have possibly suffered any huge loss from an affordable pay-as-you-use service, to justify suing at this point.

 

I am not defending Google here. Their offices could all burn down and I would not bat an eye. But there being a bad guy around is not an excuse to masquerade a lazy attempt at a quick buck as "doing justice"

 

What a shameless society

But it wasn’t just pay as you go. If you wanted to play games not included in the subscription, you had to buy them full price.

[Totallycasual]

14 hours ago, huilun02 said:

no consumer could have possibly suffered any huge loss from an affordable pay-as-you-use service, to justify suing at this point

Generally speaking i hate how litigious society has become but if nobody holds them to account, it just encourages others to make a heap of bullshit claims that they know they can't follow through on.