Stadia, the Linux-powered game streaming service from Google is just about to coming up on the one year mark since it originally went live for early backers. They're now releasing new features again and talking about the future.

Only recently did Stadia hit 100 games and gain Family Sharing but there was still a lot missing. They're finally starting to bridge the feature gap now though, with the release of more features this week. Firstly, you can now actually directly message other Stadia users from the friends list, you can directly share screenshots and clips on mobile and the web browser, when video capturing with the built-in Stadia feature it will now capture game voice chat too and they finally rolled out proper profiles along with profile links.

Here's an example of their new profile system:

Stadia actually now genuinely feels like more of a proper platform, one year later. Still no search bar though, baby steps. It's quite strange though how Google are known for their search and their own game store like this doesn't have it a year later. Just how long will they wait before their store fills up to offer it?

Looks like some new country support might also be finally rolling out soon, as their Terms of Service got updated. For the original set of countries, they're all still showing November 5, 2019 but there's a few others like Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Romania, Hungary and others that are now showing December 1, 2020.

On top of all that, Google reps from Stadia did presentations for the MEGAMIGS Canadian conference, with some highlights now up on this YouTube List . One of the interesting videos was the introduction to Stadia Games & Entertainment where Julien Cuny the Portfolio Director for Stadia Games & Entertainment gave an overview including some important info. One big thing is that they're looking for games that are planned to come out in 2023 and beyond, showing they have a long-term plan ahead for Stadia.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Google continue pushing their Stadia game streaming service, with new game releases and some useful new features that are available now.

Firstly, Stadia now has Family Sharing. Something no doubt many people have been waiting on, and it sounds like they've done it in a pretty ideal way too. With Steam, if someone is using your shared library you're unable to access it at all (unless you kick them off), however with Stadia they're only locking out that one specific game in use. Something I hope Steam eventually do too, as it's a much nicer way to do it.

Not only will Stadia share purchased games, but those you've claimed with Stadia Pro will also be shared, everything including any add-on you own. You can also individually turn on / off sharing for specific titles in your library - useful if you do not want to be even temporarily locked out of one or two. On top of that, if multiple copies are shared in your Family settings, multiple people can play that same game at the same time, it's not based on a priority of who purchased it. Seems like a well thought-out system. Note: the Stadia team noted Family Sharing may take a week to fully roll out.

Additionally, some new titles have been released on Stadia including:

• Ary and the Secret of Seasons
• Little Big Workshop
• Far Cry 5
• Far Cry New Dawn

If you have Stadia Pro, you can also now play F1 2020 free until Monday November 9 at 7PM UTC.

We're now coming up on the 1 year mark since Stadia became available to early backers, and it's hit something of a milestone as Stadia now has at least 100 games on the service. They mentioned back in January 2020 that they were tracking more than 120 games for this year so they're getting really close.

Head over to Stadia.com if any of it interests you.

Google has announced the latest set of Stadia Pro games, along with new titles about to release like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Watch Dogs: Legion.

What is Stadia? A quick primer for people not following: it's a game streaming service that uses Debian Linux under the hood along with the Vulkan graphics API. Playable on Linux in Chromium / Chrome browsers.

First up, here's what's coming to Stadia Pro on November 1, free to claim if you have a Pro subscription:

• Sniper Elite 4 (NEW on Stadia ) – As an elite agent of the Special Operations Executive, infiltrate WWII Italy and destroy an Axis superweapon. This version of Sniper Elite 4 features Stadia-exclusive HDR support.
• Risk of Rain 2 – The breakout survival roguelike comes to Stadia. Join forces with up to three friends in this innovative and haunting adventure from Gearbox Publishing.
• The Gardens Between (NEW on Stadia) – Wield control over time to unravel gorgeous puzzles in a rich, tranquil world.
• Hello Neighbor: Hide & Seek (NEW on Stadia) – The sequel to the original Hello Neighbor makes its Stadia Pro debut. Get ready for more chilling hijinks and stealth action.
• Republique – Hack security systems and take down a despot in this game of stealth and subterfuge.
• Sundered: Eldritch Edition – Unravel dark magics and unlock new paths to victory in this vast, beautiful exploratory platformer.

You should act fast as Just Shapes & Beats, Metro Last Light Redux, Strange Brigade, and West of Loathing are leaving Stadia Pro on October 31. So claim them before they're gone, otherwise you have to buy them on Stadia as normal.

As for new titles, here's what's coming you can buy:

• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - October 28
• Watch Dogs: Legion - October 29

If you still haven't given Stadia a go, anyone can try out the free HUMANKIND beta through October 28 and also the Immortals Fenyx Rising demo free through October 29.

When you fully sign up to Stadia, you also get one month free Stadia Pro too which will give you instant access to over 20 games. You can usually find the current Stadia Pro games available here . To save you a click, as of November 1 2020 these will be the games available in Stadia Pro:

• Celeste
• Crayta
• Dead by Daylight
• Destiny 2: The Collection
• Embr
• Gunsport
• GYLT
• Hello Neighbor
• Hello Neighbor: Hide & Seek
• HITMAN
• Human: Fall Flat
• Jotun: Valhalla Edition
• Little Nightmares
• Orcs Must Die! 3
• Panzer Dragoon
• PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
• Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid
• Republique
• Risk of Rain 2
• Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break
• Steamworld Dig
• SteamWorld Dig 2
• SteamWorld Heist
• SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech
• Sniper Elite 4
• Sundered: Eldritch Edition
• SUPERHOT
• SUPERHOT Mind Control Delete
• Super Bomberman R Online
• The Gardens Between

Play on Linux on Stadia.com .

Facebook announced yesterday that they're throwing their controller into the Cloud Gaming ring, although they seem to be doing it differently. Joining the likes of Google with Stadia, NVIDIA with GeForce NOW, Amazon with Luna and Microsoft with what was originally called xCloud (now bundled under Xbox Game Pass Ultimate).

In the blog post they go into a fair amount of detail about how it's going to work, and it seems it will be playable on Linux just like their current smaller games are as it will be directly in the browser at fb.gg/play . It's not going to split off into a new name or new service like others have done, it's just being integrated into what they're already doing with Facebook Gaming.

Facebook look to be doing it differently by coming out of the gate explaining they're not trying to over-promise, they don't want to replace existing consoles / gaming methods and just be an additional way to play games. Fair enough. They're also keeping the types of games down to a minimum to begin with, along with it only being open to the US right now in these places:

California, Texas and Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states including, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia and West Virginia

With more locations through 2021 as they scale up their infrastructure to cope with more people and more games.

It's also interesting to see what types of gaming they will do, as it seems they're not going for premium purchase games like Google Stadia and no subscription like Amazon Luna. Instead, the mobile-gaming way is coming with free to play games along with "cloud playable ads" and in-app purchases.

They also announced they will add in gaming-specific Player Names and Avatars so you don't have your real name and profile picture shown up when on Facebook Gaming. Due to the way it works, it seems cross-play will only happen between Facebook Gaming and supported mobile game downloads that support Facebook's login for gaming. No cross-play with other cloud gaming or other native desktop gaming, as they seem currently firmly focused on free to play games you would find on mobile.

The question is: will you use it? All the games being free sure does bring down a big barrier.

I sure as heck won't use it though. The last thing I want to do is spend longer than 5 minutes with Facebook checking for messages from family.

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After a three day event to show off new games for Stadia, along with three special demos now live you would think Google was having a good time. Unfortunately for them, one developer derailed it all.

For a quick recap of the Stadia event you can see day 1 here with PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle, day 2 here with the HUMANKIND demo and as for day 3: you can now play a free demo of the upcoming Immortals Fenyx Rising free, they announced a new exclusive 'First on Stadia' title Young Souls and the strategy game Phoenix Point is coming to Stadia in 2021. Additionally, they expanded their invite system so that if you do invite a friend to Stadia, they will get two months of Stadia Pro free and if they continue with it you then get a month free to. See the Stadia community post for all the info on that.

So that all sounds pretty reasonable, some nice games coming to Google's Linux-powered streaming service Stadia. Where did it go wrong then? Well, they're currently enjoying a serious round of bad press and Stadia ended up trending all across Twitter, and not for positive reasons.

The problem was Alex Hutchinson, who according to their Twitter bio was the "Creative Director for Google Stadia" that tweeted out these thoughts :

Streamers worried about getting their content pulled because they used music they didn't pay for should be more worried by the fact that they're streaming games they didn't pay for as well. It's all gone as soon as publishers decide to enforce it.

As a bit of context here, Twitch has caused a lot of issues lately due to DMCA take-downs due to copyrighted music. You can see an overview on The Verge .

Hutchinson followed that tweet with :

The real truth is the streamers should be paying the developers and publishers of the games they stream. They should be buying a license like any real business and paying for the content they use.

Of course, that's not really a good look but they doubled down on it in another follow up tweet :

Amazing to me that people are upset at someone saying that the creators of content should be allowed to make some of the money from other people using their content for profit.

Not exactly a good look, coming from a person who works for a currently not exactly popular service streaming games. Even worse when they posted these up with what their Twitter bio said they were. However, they're not the Creative Director of Stadia as their profile originally said. They actually worked for Typhoon Studios, which Google acquired and then became part of Stadia Games and Entertainment. So they work for a smaller game studio that Google happens to now own to make games for Stadia. Hutchinson has since changed their Twitter bio to reflect that more clearly.

The problem though, is that their comments have been widely ridiculed and it caused Stadia to enjoy thousands of angry gamers, developers and publishers all calling out Hutchinson's comments. Their original tweet has been quote-tweeted over four thousand times.

It's an easy argument to deconstruct for how ridiculous it is too. Showing off a game is nothing like playing music, or a movie. It's not static content, it's transformed by the person playing it and it's free advertising for the developer and publisher. You need only look at some of the most popular PC games around to see how livestreaming has caused massive surged in people buying those games like Among Us ( source ):

Care to guess when livestreamers picked it up? As another very quick example, here's what happened to Freehold Games with their roguelike Caves of Qud when a single video was done on it, to be clear this is their "whole sales history" ( source ):

There's plenty of other examples of this but you get the idea. There's a reason why so many developers have blanket statements up approving the use of their games in videos. Most understand it's important, and plenty directly pay streamers to take a look at their game. When talking about huge games from big publishers, most developers involved likely never see a penny from the games doing well anyway - only the people at the top do, which makes it even more ridiculous to want to see more money from people showing it off.

What Hutchinson said doesn't even match up with how Google are working with Stadia either. Google are building in streaming features to Stadia, gave out early access to livestreamers to show off Stadia and more. Google aren't dumb and they've distanced themselves very clearly from Hutchinson in a statement to 9to5Google :

The recent tweets by Alex Hutchinson, creative director at the Montreal Studio of Stadia Games and Entertainment, do not reflect those of Stadia, YouTube or Google.

As someone who personally purchased the Stadia Founders Edition, I have been watching in horror.

While the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 will not support the Linux desktop, it is at least confirmed to be launching on Stadia same-day as other platforms on November 19.

Giving players on Linux who use Stadia another way to play huge upcoming games, as all you need is a Chromium browser and a mouse or gamepad hooked up. If your country is in the supported list for Stadia, that is. Google has still yet to announce wider support for the game streaming service.

Stadia getting probably one of, if not the biggest release this year day and date with other platforms with Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty huge news and perhaps a show of how serious Google are about bringing more people and more games over to it.

From the press release:

“Huge in scale and scope, Cyberpunk 2077 is our most ambitious game to date. It’s humbling to see just how many people are looking forward to playing it, and we want to make it possible for as many gamers as possible come November 19th, when the game launches. The Stadia version will allow players to jump into Night City just seconds after the game unlocks for play worldwide without any downloads needed,” said Michał Nowakowski, SVP of Business Development, CD PROJEKT.

"CD PROJEKT RED are known for developing some of the biggest and best games ever created, and Cyberpunk 2077 is sure to deliver as the most anticipated game of the last few years. We're thrilled to announce that Cyberpunk 2077 will be available on Stadia November 19th. Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia will allow gamers to play on their favorite screens and never have to wait for a download or install to get into, and explore, the depths of Night City," said Shanna Preve, Managing Director, Stadia Partnerships.

Plenty more footage was shown off recently too on the official YouTube , like this one showing off plenty of the vehicles you will be able to get your hands on:

Watch video on YouTube.com

They also confirmed that people who buy the game on Stadia will get a set of Cyberpunk 2077-themed digital goodies including: the game’s original score, art booklet, the original Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook and Cyberpunk 2077: Your Voice comic book, as well as a set of wallpapers for desktop and mobile.

See Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia .

It's worth noting also, that CD PROJEKT RED have been embroiled in plenty of controversy around Cyberpunk 2077. Video game journalist Jason Schreier has been covering it in detail , with a developer who was apparently confirmed to be working on it posting about the working conditions on Reddit too. Crunch is seriously terrible and it's such a massive shame these big games keep forcing such terrible conditions on developers.

Don't miss that we're expecting more big Stadia news next week , which we will be following along.

Enlarge / This demonstration of Microsoft's Project xCloud as played with a Razer Kishi controller, attached to a standard Android smartphone, could be a hint of what's to come to iOS devices in 2021. (credit: Microsoft)

Project xCloud, the Microsoft game-streaming service that comes packed as a bonus in certain Xbox Game Pass subscription plans , may finally have a path to working on Apple's range of iOS devices—well after a public row between the tech giants that put the possibility into question.

The news comes from a report by Business Insider , which claimed that an internal Microsoft meeting on Wednesday included a vote of confidence from Xbox chief Phil Spencer. "We absolutely will end up on iOS," Spencer reportedly said about getting its streamed Project xCloud game content onto iOS devices in "2021."

Progressive policies

Previously, Apple shot down existing versions of both Project xCloud (which has since been rolled into the "Xbox Game Pass" app) and Google Stadia as iOS apps. Their public statements hinged on "reviewing" the games included in the subscription against App Store guidelines, though the issue could also stem from in-app purchases within both Xbox and Stadia's offerings. Eventually, Apple offered a revised stance on such apps , but this onerous "approval for every separate game" proposal comes with its own headaches, as opposed to a clear path toward a simple subscription service (as you'll find in popular iOS media apps like Netflix and Amazon Video ).

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Another fresh set of games have been announced as either coming to Stadia or being added to Stadia Pro.

Google announced today that Dead By Daylight will launch free for Stadia Pro on October 1, and it will have cross-platform online play with all other platforms. That's huge and exactly how it should be done. Not only that, it's also coming with Crowd Choice, the new Stadia feature that's like Twitch integration - giving viewers of livestreams on YouTube the chance to vote on things. It was said that Crowd Choice will come to other games too like Baldu'rs Gate 3 and more to come.

More titles coming to Stadia Pro too. Human: Fall Flat is another new release and free also for Stadia Pro on October 1. Apart from that some existing games with SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE , Celeste , Jotun and Lara Croft: Temple of Osiris will also be added to Stadia Pro.

However you need to act fast as Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom , The Turing Test , and Metro 2033 Redux will be leaving Stadia Pro so you have until the end of September 30 to claim and keep them - otherwise they will be available to purchase on Stadia as normal.

Watch video on YouTube.com

In other Stadia release news the four-player co-op action game Risk of Rain 2 is available as of today on Stadia for a time-limited early price of $19.99 / £15.99.

This week they've also put T om Clancy’s The Division 2 on a discount for the base game and the expansion. The Division 2 has cross-play with Windows too.

Personally, I am quite excited to try out Dead By Daylight. A game that doesn't support the Linux desktop and doesn't work in the Proton compatibility layer due to anti-cheat problems, so it's another case of Stadia giving an option without leaving your Linux desktop (if Stadia supports your country, that is).

See more on the Stadia store .