While cloud gaming is certainly believed to be the future of gaming, several factors have hindered the exponential growth of Stadia as Google certainly envisioned, including gamers’ loyalty to their PlayStation and Xbox consoles where they already have a huge library of games and the super-fast internet speeds required to make game streaming a buttery smooth experience.
Google, however, has not yet given up on its Stadia venture and has been quietly making changes and improvements to make the platform more readily accessible to anyone who might want to give it a spin. Next up, in their plan, is a free 30-minute game trial for selected titles.
Hello Engineer, an exclusive title to the Google Stadia platform has been selected for the first test run of the free trial period. The free game trial allows players to try out the title for 30 minutes without a paid Stadia Pro subscription. If you already have a Stadia Pro subscription, the game is available for free for a limited time (not specified for how long, but more than 30 minutes) before it requires you to spend $20 (Ksh 2,200) to purchase it outright.
If you are interested to try out the free game, the trial will appear on the game’s listing page underneath options for Stadia Pro. Once the free trial starts, you will get access to the game, with a countdown appearing on the sidebar to show you how long you still have left on the trial. The timer will start counting from the moment you accept the free trial, pausing and exiting the game will not halt the timer.
At the end of the trial, Google will ask you if you would like to purchase the game. If you accept and purchase it outright, your progress from the free trial will be saved and carried over so that you do not have to start the game all over again in your next sitting.
The Verge reports that Google is planning to run this experiment over the next couple of months, and other selected titles are expected to be added in the coming weeks to give people options if Hello Engineer is not their cup of tea. They also believe the free trial period won’t be always 30 minutes, and you may not see the same games as everyone else.
Despite the challenges Stadia has had to put up with already, offering free trials despite the limited time is certainly the right step in creating trust between the players and the publishers. This is especially so because Steam, the most popular game store on PC, offers full refunds for games if you have not played them for more than two hours.
The free trial also does not add extra work to the developers as there is no need to create a demo since players will be getting access to the full game, and their progress is transferred over once they purchase the game. Other free games that you can try on the Google Stadia platform include Destiny 2 and Super Bomberman R Online.
