With the coronavirus continuing to grab a hold on the world, more countries and people than ever are currently being held indoors as a result of social distancing measures in an effort to curb the virus’ spread. As a result, several companies in the games industry are finding ways to encourage “staying apart together” through playing video games. As a part of that, Google Stadia is offering a chance to play games together and an opportunity to grow its audience with a free trial of the game streaming platform.
In a blog post from Stadia VP and GM Phil Harrison, Google is releasing its free service tier for Google Stadia today that allows anyone to play games through the streaming platform on various compatible devices. According to Google, all you need to access Stadia is a registered Gmail account to sign up and begin playing.
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To help people connect with friends online & have some fun during these challenging times, we’re opening up Stadia for everyone. You’ll also get 2 months of free access to Stadia Pro with some free games to play!
Alongside the release of the free service tier of Google Stadia, the company is also providing a free trial for Stadia Pro memberships that will run for the next two months, starting today. New users that register for Stadia today will automatically be able to grab the Stadia Pro membership, while current Stadia Pro members won’t be charged for the next two months of service. Users can either opt out of the Pro membership service once their trial runs out, or continue with the service at its $9.99/month price.
With the free Stadia Pro memberships, users will be able to access nine games as part of the service. The full list of games available free with Stadia Pro can be found below:
According to Harrison, Google is also making some temporary changes to Stadia’s bandwidth usage for “a responsible approach to internet traffic. Much like other companies such as Sony, Google will be adjusting the default screen resolution for Stadia games from 4K to 1080p output in order to reduce strain on internet bandwidth usage. Harrison stated that “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.”
