Well if that's all it takes, we can just use bots to simulate every possible keystroke at every possible moment, capture the frames returned, and have a preserved game. If all that matters is the end result, we can have it.
Excellent. So in summary, according to you: 1) The sky is falling because Google Stadia has exactly one game that only Google staff and the independent developer writing it (did I mention it's not Google's IP?) can get to the source code of, which guarantees 100% it won't ever be preserved 2) Black box reverse engineering is adequate for software preservation (much like the recent Crash Bandicoot remaster, reverse engineered by its own developers, with terrible physics), because close enough is good enough (fuck it, let's just simulate every game, why even bother dumping binaries?) 3) The previous thousands of games that have been confirmed permanently lost are just laziness, versus Google's pure evil. Got it. I'll be sure to pass on your expertise to the next Australia Preserves meetup I'm attending. They'll have a great old laugh.
Unfortunately once you have all this data, someone has to figure out what it all does, and then create a server to issue the correct responses. Its not at all easy. There are some automated packet recorders/servers, but these only work for static responses in single player games. (Especially useful in the odd game that just want the server to give the ok before you can play) The sky is not falling, simply its a worrying direction we could be going in. I don't agree with you. If you look at the amount of obscure games that exist, its very easy for them to be unnoticed. Even today there is countless amounts of important games and other data that are fading into obscurity simply because nobody is doing the work of preserving it. That is completely different to simply being unable to preserve it due to it being a video.
They were your words, friend. How does one capture network packets when the servers are down? And how does one guarantee that they've captured all edge cases when black box analysing? Simulation, not perseveration. This flip flopping is boring.
You need some glasses then You can't capture packets when the server down, which makes it way too hard to be worth trying to make an emulator. Thats why there is a huge push to capture these packets now for various services, so a server emulator can be made later. All this is human initiated, unfortunately nothing can be initiated for Stadia
On to actual Google stadia news, it looks like those who placed a bet with elvis might be collecting sooner than the 2 year time frame. New year new generic post from the stadia devs. Still no roadmap with actual dates for any key initial launch features ( iphone compatibility, jump in games) to go with the reddit revolt from the early adopters. When you have reputable sites asking for the free tier and stating the stadia population has halved since launch, alarm bells should be ringing. I'd be pretty upset with the stadia devs with their lack of communication - the latest post is more smoke and mirror with very little concrete information. 4 features over 3 months is pretty poor but the "10 stadia exclusives" will more make all things right for everyone /s. Can't wait to see the data used for 4k streaming if/when it launches.
Looks like they are giving 2 months of Stadia Pro for free since the 8th. Not many people seemed to of noticed though.. Source: https://blog.google/products/stadia/try-stadia-free-today
Pretty sure it's still not available in Australia, and with global surges in traffic playing it over a VPN to the US is just not possible. I've seen a fair bit of chatter about it from US gaming sources. People using it there in metro areas are pretty happy with the service.
Guess you must be reading different sources as most of the ones I've read encourage people to try it out but to make sure to cancel the auto renew subscription before the trial is up. Not much has improved for stadia and with Microsoft's xcloud release looming- it's a matter of how long Google will keep stadia on life support. Edit: almost none of the reviewers/sources recommend stadia for long term gaming in it a current format. Why pay AAA prices for older games ( which you probably already own on another platform) that can only be played on stadia??
