Games: Godot, Steam Deck, and End of Stadia
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Godot Engine - Dev snapshot: Godot 4.0 beta 2
We released Godot 4.0 beta 1 two weeks ago! That was a big milestone on our journey to finalize our next major release – be sure to check out that blog post if you haven't yet, for an overview of some of the main highlight of Godot 4.0.
But the "1" in beta 1 means that it's only the first step of the journey, and like for the alpha phase, we're going to release new beta snapshots roughly every other week. So here's beta 2!
The reception of beta 1 was surprisingly good – we're happy to see the community tinker with the beta, report bugs and provide feedback on the new features. Many bugs have been fixed in just two weeks, with close to 250 PRs merged, many of which fixed bugs reported by beta testers.
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Did the TGS2022 Help The Steam Deck Gain Awareness in Japan? Apparently Yes! - Boiling Steam
As you know Valve and Komodo have partnered to have a huge booth at the Tokyo Games Show 2022 (TGS2022), and while the show was much smaller than usual, because of the post-COVID19 era, there were still quite a few journalists covering the event, almost as much as usual. But has the event managed to increase the interest in the device locally?
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Google gives up on Stadia, will offer refunds on games and hardware | GamingOnLinux
As expected for some time now, Google has decided to call it quits on their cloud gaming service Stadia. This was announced in a blog post today.
Written up by Phil Harrison, the Vice President and General Manager at Stadia, the post mentions how "it hasn't gained the traction with users that we expected so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service".
The wildest part about this, is that they're going to be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the main Google Store and they will also be refunding all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store. Harrison said they expect to have finished up the majority of refunds by Mid-January, 2023. They will not be refunding any Stadia Pro subscriptions though, only the full purchases. More info on the process here but it seems like it's not ready yet.
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A message about Stadia and our long term streaming strategy
For many years, Google has invested across multiple aspects of the gaming industry. We help developers build and distribute gaming apps on Google Play and Google Play Games. Gaming creators are reaching audiences around the world on YouTube through videos, live streaming and Shorts. And our cloud streaming technology delivers immersive gameplay at massive scale.
A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia. And while Stadia's approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn't gained the traction with users that we expected so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service.