42 PCWorld MAY 2020NEWS GOOGLE’S STADIA IS FINALLY ‘FREE’
available to you only through Stadia—
meaning that unlike Project xCloud (go.
pcworld.com/pxcl) or GeForce Now (go.
pcworld.com/gfrn), you can’t take advantage
of streaming when you’re on the go and then
opt to install locally when you’re home. Stadia
doesn’t work that way. It’s always cloud-
based, and that can have nasty ramifications
for data caps. I did the math, back in
November:
“By Google’s own math, 4K streaming
requires up to 20GB of data per hour. If we
take the average Red Dead Redemption II
playthrough of 75 hours, Stadia would burn
through up to 1.5TB of data before the end.”
That’s...a lot.
Google’s free-tier launch at least means
you no longer have to worry about losingsign up.
It’s a good and
necessary step (and
doubly good with
everyone stuck at home
right now). One of
Stadia’s biggest hurdles is
the try-before-you-buy
aspect. It’s hard to know
how much the latency will
annoy you, or whether
your Internet connection
is strong enough, or if any
of a dozen other factors
will matter, until you’ve
spent some time with
Stadia—so you might as well sign up if you’re
interested.
You’ll receive two free months of Stadia
Pro in return. Normally $10 a month, Stadia
Pro gets you access to 4K streaming and a
small library of games. At the moment that
means Destiny 2, a handful of the
SteamWorld games, Thumper, Stadia-
exclusive Gylt, and a few others. You can sign
up, get your two months of Stadia Pro, and
play the dozen games on offer. If you don’t
want it to auto-renew, you’ll need to disable it
before June 8 or thereabouts.
Playing anything else requires buying into
Stadia as a platform though, and it’s here I’d
advise caution. You don’t get a Steam copy
with your purchase, or an Xbox copy, or
whatever. If you buy a game on Stadia, it’sGoogle Stadia is no longer restricted to those who bought the Founder’s
Edition hardware kit.