I got a student discount to buy a Google Stadia games system for £60. Seemed like pretty good value. But I didn’t buy it – because Google

Yo! Stadia! How much do your games cost?

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2021-05-25 12:30:05

I got a student discount to buy a Google Stadia games system for £60. Seemed like pretty good value. But I didn’t buy it – because Google refuses to tell me how much their ecosystem costs.

There’s nothing on the main Stadia page which says that you need to pay £9/month to get the 4K version of games. Go on, take a look at https://store.google.com/gb/product/stadia?hl=en-GB.

It says “features (including 4K, HDR, 60 fps and 5.1 surround sound) are service-, network-, device- and game-dependent” but it doesn’t say anything about the cost! Only if you closely read the small print on a completely separate page do you find out that this requires a subscription.

OK, so how much do the individual games cost? It’s impossible to find out. The Stadia page lists their (small) selection of titles. But there are no prices.

I know I could go to one of the dozens of sites which claim to scape the prices from Stadia. But that’s a little fragile, isn’t it? Why are Google so afraid of showing me the true prices? The only conclusion I can come to is that the prices are unreasonable and Google are hoping to trap me in their platform.