Cold Call Should Google Stay in the Cloud Gaming Business?
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Feb 18, 2025 In this discussion, Derek van Bever, a Senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, and Akshat Agrawal, a recent graduate and co-author of the Google Stadia case study, tackle the challenges Google faced in the cloud gaming market. They explore Stadia’s strategic choices, from casual gamers to potential missteps against competitors like Microsoft and Sony. The duo emphasizes the need for strong market strategies and insights gained from Stadia's rise and fall, ultimately questioning the future of cloud gaming for tech giants.
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Gaming Landscape
- Gaming is the largest sector in the entertainment and media industry, exceeding $180 billion in 2020.
- Key players include Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Google, Apple, and game studios/publishers, with recent M&A activity like Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Stadia's Vision
- Google Stadia's vision was to eliminate the need for expensive consoles and enable seamless gaming from anywhere with an internet connection.
- This aimed to replicate the experience of local consoles by minimizing network latency.
Subscription and Purchase Model
- Derek van Bever's son wasn't interested in cloud gaming.
- Requiring both a subscription and individual game purchases deterred him further.