Google – 2 Months of FREE Stadia Pro Cloud-based Gaming

Internet giant Google has announced that, due to the lockdown caused by COVID-19, they’re going to give video gamers in 14 countries (including the UK) “free access” to Stadia Pro for two months (usually £8.99 per month) and you can cancel at any time. Just makes sure your broadband ISP speed is up to the challenge.

Stadia is a cloud based video gaming service, where you remote play games that are streamed (via almost any device with a good display – smartphones, laptops, tablets, desktop PCs etc.) over the internet from a huge data centre. The service itself launched last year, although it has suffered some teething problems with latency and video quality.

Generally this works best if you can run it in 4K HDR resolution at 60 frames per second with 5.1 surround sound, which tends to require a stable download speed of 35Mbps, although the streaming auto-adapts to slower connections (i.e. it can run at a “recommended minimum” of 10Mbps but you’d end up playing at the lower HD resolution of 720p).

At this point some of our readers may note that most of the major video streaming platforms, such as Netflix or Google’s own YouTube, have recently adopted temporary measures to reduce their video quality during the COVID-19 outbreak. In reality this hasn’t had much impact on UK broadband ISPs, where video streams can be cached closer to end-users in order to avoid networks becoming too stressed.

One issue here is that such caching works best with linear video streams (i.e. many users seeing identical content), while cloud-based services like Stadia stream dynamic video to individual users (the player is constantly changing the stream) and as a result Google has decided to take some action here too.

Google’s Stadia Pro Statement

If you’re new, playing on Stadia is simple:

– Go to Stadia.com to sign up.
– Download the Stadia app on Android or iOS.
– Play on your laptop, desktop or Chrome OS tablet with your favorite (HID compliant) USB supported controller or mouse and keyboard.
– Play over Wi-Fi on Pixel or many supported Android phones.

With increased demand due to more people at home during this time, we’re taking a responsible approach to internet traffic. For Stadia, we’ve always adjusted bandwidth use based on a variety of in-home and local internet factors.

To reduce load on the internet further, we’re working toward a temporary feature that changes the default screen resolution from 4k to 1080p. The vast majority of people on a desktop or laptop won’t notice a significant drop in gameplay quality, but you can choose your data usage options in the Stadia app.

Otherwise Google began rolling out their offer of two months free service last night and this process is expected to run for 48 hours until fully deployed across all their markets. At present you can access 9 games via Stadia Pro, such as GRID, Destiny 2: The Collection and Thumper. Existing Stadia Pro customers will also get two months of the service for free.

After the 2 month free Stadia Pro trial you can choose to either start paying for it or revert to the free Stadia service, which is limited to 1080p resolution, 60fps and stereo sound.