Google’s Stadia is dead, to begin with, and for many people, that was the nail in the coffin for real browser-based gaming. But what killed the Stadia? Complaints about its performance were one thing, but it also didn’t deliver on promised features, and the vacuum chamber of its game catalog gave gamers little to play on it in the first place. Older readers might be reminded of the fate of the Dreamcast, a console before its time. Just like that didn’t kill consoles, the Stadia isn’t the death of browser-based game platforms, and in fact, they’re probably about to become larger than ever.
The need for gaming rigs will die, mainly because we will kill off graphics. Soon, playing a Game of the Year from a major studio or the next big indie game will be as simple as playing Flash games online or Space Zoo with the click of a link.
Graphics Are About as Intense as They’ll Ever Be
Since the invention of video games, the race for innovation has been about game design and graphics. At this point, graphics are more or less solved, implying a certain PlayStation Exec sees innovations in narrative rising to replace evolving graphics. He is right. While big studios continue to pour millions into the development of nearly photorealistic games, they’re competing increasingly with indie games with simple art styles or even pixel graphics.
The success of those indie titles isn’t just about nostalgia. If that’s all it was, it would’ve ended after a few years, but instead, it’s accelerating, gaining steam, and becoming a threat to major studios. It turns out that gamers want stylized artistic approaches, clever interfaces, and inventive designs, which only sometimes require the graphical intensity of significant titles. Of course, graphically intense games will always have a place, but only as much as they support the creativity and artistic vision gamers want. Photorealism isn’t mandatory. It never was. It was cool, and ‘cool’ gets clicks, but it doesn’t fund a game studio alone.
Games Belong in the Browser, Not the Hard Drive
This is about technological progress as much as anything. Graphically intense game installs are getting to the point where they require terabytes of space, but equally popular indie titles might use less than a hundred megabytes. Like movies and music, eventually, there won’t be a point in having these things on your computer anymore, especially as game “Stores” and game libraries have already begun to evolve into streaming launchers. Many of these libraries are already browser-based.
Stadia’s demise was not a sign of the end but a testament to being ahead of its time.
The ability to stream games from server-side databases onto browser-based launchers is set to become a standard feature. As technology advances, processing power and network potential will make streaming games as effortless as streaming a movie. This is the future of gaming, where the focus is less on intense graphics and more on artistry, narrative, and clever design. So, rest assured, the future of gaming technology is bright and promising.
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