Google has made a change to their Google Stadia service… again. On Tuesday at the Google for Games Developer Sumit, the company made changes to the game streaming service. Two caught my eye. This year, Google will let any Stadia game developer offer an instantly accessible free trial of their game that will no longer require you to log into a Stadia account to play — just a couple of clicks from YouTube, a Google Search ad, social media, etc.
Additionally, the company will let white-label partners like AT&T sign up to take Google’s technology to offer free demos and paid games of their own, a B2B offering now dubbed “Immersive Stream for Games.”
Why do we care?
I’ve long predicted these streaming gaming services, including Microsoft’s Cloud Streaming Service, will also end up used in business. You don’t have to squint as much to see how it can quickly develop. Sure, application streaming isn’t new…. but if it serves gamers, it will become a lot more mainstream and accepted. That’s why we care to watch the space for maturity.