As Google Stadia enters its final hours, I wanted to express my gratitude to the whole Stadia Team and how they reignited my love for gaming.
My story tends to follow a similar trend to the majority of gamers that I’ve met within the Stadia community. I’ve never been a what some would call a Hardcore gamer, especially not since I was between the ages 14-18 at least anyway where I remember playing Half Life: Counter-Strike every evening until the early hours and being part of a community clan.
I’ve been lucky enough throughout my childhood and early teens that my parents recognized my love of gaming and were able to fund my habits. I have a very vague memory of playing a Robin Hood type of game on a Spectrum (I believe) with the games on cassette tapes – Do some of you even remember cassette tapes – which would probably take me to the age of around 5/6 years old. However this was just the start as I went through phases of the following:
- 90’s
- Nintendo (NES)
- Super Nintendo (SNES) – which I still own
- Sega Mega Drive – which I still own
- Playstation
- 00’s
- Playstation 2
- PC
- 10’s
- Playstation 3
- Playstation 4
- Nintendo Switch
- 20’s
- Google Stadia
- GeForce Now
- Xbox Cloud Gaming
Teens
Entering into the era of PlayStation we had the greatest years of gaming in my opinion. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken – these are some of the examples which are staples in gaming, even to today and set me on my preferred gaming platform until only one year ago. I could not even attempt to count the amount of gaming time I spend across the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2. My parents coming into my room 2-3am (on a school night) gaming away.
This was alongside me having my own PC and playing titles such as GTA, Championship Manager (before Football Manager), FIFA, and my favorite from my teens, Half Life: Counter-Strike. It was Counter-Strike that brought me into the online world, joining clans and battling against other teams for glory.
Early Adulthood
Early adult life is where gaming took a back seat. I ventured further with my career to become a software developer at the same time found myself becoming a parent, as many of us know too well takes a lot of time (not that we would ever want it any other way). I remember selling my PC, due to aging hardware, not affording upgrades and limited space to house it. At this point I had a PlayStation 3 but limited time to play popular titles such as GTA, Call of Duty, FIFA, Uncharted and Assassin’s Creed.
Present Day
Limited game time became a common trend as I struggled to find time, as well as access to the TV as my children became older. If you browse through my Exophase profile you will see gaps where I didn’t play for months on end. Spider-Man took me 346 days to complete (61 hours of gameplay), this is compared to the 75 days (33 hours of gameplay) to complete Miles Morales in 2021, after Stadia sunk its teeth in.
I have always been a Google follower, from Android software, the Chrome browser, even hardware going back to the early Nexus range. July 2019 was when I first heard of a new gaming era upon us where you could use existing hardware, no updates or downloads and instant gaming across multiple device, I was already sold, signing up for the Founders edition and eagerly awaiting 19th November 2019.
Cloud Gaming had its struggles
As many of us, I had some issues early doors. My connection was spotty, limited games. I had never played Destiny 2 before, and I’m sure this was the first game I tried along with Samurai Shodown, but it didn’t grip me straight away. That was until Tomb Raider joined Stadia Pro on 1st December. I was still getting latency issues, but I could see the potential. I was hit-and-miss through-out 2020 due to issues and eventually moving house. However After investing into the Google Wi-Fi through Black Friday sales in 2020 all my issues instantly vanish – Biggest tip I can offer, get rid of ISP provided hardware. It was then that I saw the pure power of what Stadia could offer.
I am but just a humble casual gamer, the convenience and portability alone was enough for me to enjoy gaming again no matter where I was. I found myself having little sessions whilst waiting for my son’s football training to finish, whilst cooking tea (probably explains some of the meals) and even late at night before drifting off. The fact that Stadia is 25% of my complete gaming history (Exophase) should offer some insight to its availability. For reference 70% is PlayStation which spans 13 years (2009-2022)
Love of the Community
It was the amazing, friendly people that I’ve met along the way that made Stadia my platform of choice after many years of PlayStation. Once I heard the news of Stadia back in 2019, it was StadiaCast from Bill and Lloyd that kept me engaged on a weekly basis, hearing of the games that they had been playing or looking forward to playing. Unfortunately StadiaCast ended, and I ventured out to seek my cloud gaming fix. I was introduced to a whole host of like-minded gamers and content creators such as our very own MM2K, Rokk, Clive Illenden, Jon Scarr, SPG, to name a few, but the list goes on.
It was Jack’s weekly Stadia stat’s that got me into collecting my own stats and looking at trends on Stadia. This led to my first article back in July 2022 with the Race to 100 games series. Little did I know that only 2 months later that series would end and that Stadia didn’t hit the golden number. However since then, I have continued to contribute, and I am deeply grateful to be a part of the reformed Cloud Dosage team.
Final Words and looking to the future
Since Google announced that Stadia would be shutting down, my gaming took another step back. I have finished a few games that I was in the middle of, gained a few quick 100% achievements but eventually stopped in mid-October. I’ve tried the Worm Game to which may be my last entry in my Stadia chapter.
After selling my PlayStation 4 last year, I am sticking with the cause and fighting the good fight that Cloud Gaming is the future. I have been dabbling between Xbox Cloud Gaming and began to build my Steam Library to play via GeForce Now.
Finally I am grateful that through Stadia I have met so many amazing people across the globe, whom I hope I get the pleasure to continue chatting and gaming with for many years to come.
See you in the clouds
Sunny – Sunny Cloud Gaming
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