Technology

I hear a lot of positive things about cloud gaming from both astroturfers and unabashed shills, does that count?

It's a product the big tech companies are desperate to convince people they want because it would open the door to far more monetization

I used it for a good few years when it first was a thing. It's pretty decent when you are close to the server and have stable enough connection. I played quite a through few steam games this way through geforce now. Even cyberpunk 2077 was a great experience on it.

It's a great stepping stone between getting new hardware but once I finally got my PC I just stopped using it.

Now gfn was the only good implementation cause it used your existing steam (and I hear now Xbox) library, instead of being locked to the app itself, so you could even see it as a extension to your setup

I use it occasionally to try out games on gamepass that I'm not sure I'll enjoy. I'll usually play for about 30 minutes to an hour and then decide if I want to install it or just play something else.

I also occasionally use it on my steamdeck but that's even less often.

I used it for Stadia for a bit. Only thing I thought was an actually useful feature was instant demos. Other than that, I feel like the overlap of people who want to play games, can afford and have a really good Internet connection, but don't want to just buy a console/computer is really small.

Geforce Now is actually pretty good, but that's because it's your own Steam library, rather than something like Stadia where you're expected to buy games anew.

I used to play Stadia a lot, since I did not have the hardware to support high quality gaming. It worked splendidly, it's a shame they decided to shut it down.

If you have a console or a PC gaming, then of course it's useless.

I used to play a bit on Geforce Now when I only had my laptop with me. That was the only service with usable latency where I live.

I used stadia as a Linux user to play Destiny and some other games.

There were a lot of pros, no cheaters, I could play on tons of devices/locations, there's less power draw vs running the game itself on a laptop, etc.

Unfortunately Stadia is dead, and I think it was the best of the best. I've tried some of the alternatives like GeForce and it barely even comes close to what Google was offering. It's certainly not got the value proposition.

No, never. I don't even like the idea of cloud saves.

I want my data on my network as much as I can and I will force remove the Samsung bloatware again from my phone

For me it's mainly a nice backup for when the Xbox or TV is occupied by someone else. I don't think I'd use it as my prime source of gaming. It works but it's not quite as good as the actual playing on your own hardware.