The cloud-based game streaming service Google Stadia got off to a rocky start when it launched last year, with some features not being immediately available and many players not able to fully use the service. The company has worked hard to improve on the product and hopes to have a massive year in 2020. To that end, it was recently revealed by Google that part of these plans involves a “Free Tier” for the streaming service.

In a recent interview, Google vice president and general manager Phil Harrison explained that while the gaming industry was once seen as a niche option for entertainment, it has become more and more enticing for developers and publishers on a global scale. As the market continues to grow, these tech companies continue to contemplate just how to bring their products to a wider audience. According to Harrison, there’s been a shift from physical consoles that have dominated the market for decades to streaming gaming, with data centers becoming players’ platform of choice instead.

For many years the game industry was somewhat overshadowed by music and movies and was always trying to justify itself as a form of mainstream media and entertainment. Now, games are far and away the largest entertainment medium on the planet from a digital perspective, so that global scale and size is attractive to the large technology companies as a way of bringing their products and services to more people.”

With Microsoft’s Project xCloud set to launch later this year and other streaming services already available as well such as the GeForce Now, Google Stadia will need to step up their game in 2020 if they hope to stand out amongst the growing crowd of streaming options. Harrison explains that to do this, Google plans to offer a free streaming option, giving players the ability to just “click and play” games without putting any money down. Unfortunately, Harrison didn’t mention exactly when players can expect to see this free streaming option, though he did mention that it will be “over the next few months.”

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