Speculation:

Stadia will use push notifications to facilitate massive social events.

(A) Linking things

Let’s talk about something fun! I haven’t seen this announced anywhere. I haven’t heard any sites or podcasts mention it. And I’m pretty sure that’s very intentional. Google has been laying low about something I believe we’ll be hearing more about very soon.

From the very first announcement, we’ve known that Stadia will be able to launch games from links. If a user is watching a game on YouTube that’s also available on Stadia, a link will be next to the video that will let the viewer begin playing that very game in seconds.

It was reiterated once more when they announced State Share. For certain games, users will be able to share the exact game state with each other through a link. This means that when someone else clicks on that link, it will not only launch the game, but the player will start at a specified point with specified stats and circumstances. HP, weapons, ammo, armor, inventory, enemy positioning, and even bullets in mid-air. All exactly the same each time that link is used.

That sounds complicated

It’s actually ingeniously simple. Saving a game state has been possible for a long time. Emulators commonly have the ability to save the game state allowing a player to return to exact times and places within the game. Although, it likely took a lot of work to be made efficient for something like this.

Personally, my favorite part of this is the way Google integrated them with links. It’s impressive in its simplicity. The game state is already on the server, and in many cases, the server could already be running and waiting for a player. The link just tells the Stadia service to connect that server with the player that clicked it. A stream begins and the user is able to play in seconds.

This same method could apply to the links next to YouTube videos as well. This is likely how they achieve the 5-second startup speeds that they quoted. An algorithm could monitor how many people are watching videos of each supported game. The algorithm could have predictive models about how likely people are to click that link in any given video. That data could be given to a governor that controls servers. That governor could make sure there’s a game instance waiting for each player as soon as they click the link.

Even paid titles are likely to have demos available. Those demos could just be a state shared portion of the game. But that still means that someone could be watching a video for a $60 game they don’t own, click a link next to the video, then be playing a part of the game within seconds. All of this is incredibly powerful.

Hiding in plain sight

Here’s something Google has quietly avoided giving away. If it can be done with a link, it can be done with a notification. The link is just a method of communication, one that can be changed. This means a user could receive a notification that when pressed will begin a stream and connect them with an already waiting server. There are so many implications to this, it’s crazy.

Let’s imagine a notification is sent to everyone within a city that states aliens are attacking. People could select the notification and participate in a massive battle to try and drive the aliens away. Let’s say that battle could be won, or lost.

Now let’s imagine that notification was sent to an entire state. The performance of each city could be compared to each other on a leaderboard to see which city did the best. Now let’s imagine that notification was sent to an entire country. I think you get the idea. Of course, the scaling will be limited. But really, only to the number of game instances that Google is able to provide.

(C) Social butterfly

With state share, this gets even more interesting. A challenge could be sent out that drops players into a dire situation; surrounded by enemies and with little health and resources. If the player succeeds in beating the challenge, they get a badge and can brag to their friends. Or a high score challenge could be set up and players could compete to see who is the best in the division.

This could be used for PvP too. Imagine you’re part of a guild that has a guildhall within the game. Imagine rival guilds could create events in which they can attack your hall. Everyone within the defending guild could get a notification calling for them to defend their hall. Players could join and fight to the bitter death. If they lose, their guildhall is ransacked and a new rivalry is born.

And yes, this feature will also work for users playing on a TV or through the Chrome browser. The communication method can always be changed. They’ll simply get a popup. They can open a menu to select the popup and join. Furthermore, the game they were previously playing could also have its state saved, so when the event is over the player can return instantly to exactly what they were doing before.

This is something new and incredibly versatile. This is something revolutionary that will change the way games are played. This is something I can’t wait to get my hands on.



