Earlier this week we got a new Stadia Connect video. During this event, among many other announcements, it was revealed that PUBG is now live on Stadia for the first time. This could be a huge opportunity for the service, after having a lacklustre launch and poor reception since.
Before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Stadia was losing players left right and centre. It wasn’t deemed a sensible streaming platform, and barely made sense, with a subscription fee each month, plus games that had to be paid for. Now however, Stadia has shifted to become something new.
Google is currently in the middle of offering Stadia Pro for free for two months. That means that anyone can download the app and play the ten free games on it with no charges. Even Stadia Pro subscribers get a break for two months. This effectively makes the service more like a normal subscription platform, even though there are still costs associated with it.
Google has even gone as far as saying that Stadia Base, the free version of Stadia, won’t exist anymore. That’s because they’re making Stadia available to everyone for free at the basic level, with Pro being an optional subscription for those who want 4K game streaming.
PUBG is the icing on the cake here. It’s a phenomenal game, no one can deny that, and now it’s available to play absolutely anywhere. While the same is true of Destiny 2, that game doesn’t have crossplay, and PUBG does. That element to the game, the ability to play with anyone in the game, regardless of platform, is what may push Stadia over the edge to becoming a legitimate competitor in the game streaming scene.
It’s early days right now, but PUBG is hugely popular. Making it available for free is one thing, but making it possible to play the game from your phone with other players on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One is like opening Pandora’s Box. At this point I don’t think Google have any idea what is going to happen. The game is so popular that it could crash servers this weekend, if enough players sign up to play it. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
