No they didn't.
"You have to rebuy your games, that you can't play anywhere else" isn't just "not the best way". It's straight up horseshit with no possible way to be valid. It's also the biggest reason it tanked.
The only thing about stadia that was in any way redeemable was the fact that they didn't mess around and gave full refunds for any game purchase.
It's already proven. Repeatedly.
Nintendo and every lawyer involved should see obscene fines for the blatant harassment.
Emulation is not piracy.
There is an abundance of precedent that emulation is not copyright infringement and is not in any way illegal. You can absolutely make money on an emulator and there is absolutely nothing they can do.
The courts aren't. Nintendo is.
Emulation has already been litigated to hell and back. It's very clearly legal, including relying on users pulling a blob or two from their hardware for the whole thing to function.
It's a far cry better than Google or Amazon making you buy the game on their service specifically.
It's still cloud gaming. So it still sucks. But at least they're not trying to force you into a shitty locked in storefront. (Though not keeping your Steam login is definitely a pain point.)
There isn't guesswork involved. They know for certain that people will. They have network effect on their side. Their entire audience is captive. Anyone willing to leave already has after the hundreds of different "revelations" of how fucking disgusting everything they have ever touched is.
They aren't selling anything but your privacy. It's Apple's limitations on being overt malware that they'd be bypassing, and it is absolutely guaranteed that they would do so the literal minute they can.
Yes, it would.
They don't leave the play store because, and exclusively because, Google allows them to do anything they want. Apple does not. The literally exact day a similar law goes into effect in the US, it's an absolute guarantee Facebook leaves the App Store with every single app they have. There's not even the slight possibility they stay there.
Black flag, more ships/weapon paths, maybe some fleet commands for bigger battles, expand the shipping jobs thing to feel like you're really commanding a fleet.
Or none of that and just call it a pirate game.
If it was actually like Black Flag I'd be all over it.
But it's live service shit.
The other dumb part is that when their manufacturing capability does significantly improve, AMD will happily sell similar chips to other people. And Valve won't care in the slightest. Because all they want is people on PC so they buy games, many of which are through steam.
Linux being relevant is a bigger benefit to them than any revenue from the deck, and they've already demonstrated that it's capable of pretty much any game that doesn't actively exclude it.
Facebook/ten cent/etc have literally zero reason to stay off the play store. Google encourages them to be malware, and doesnt curtail their bad behavior is any way.
Apple doesn't. They might not leave while they think they can also destroy the security of iOS in the US, but it is a complete and utter certainty that the literal day any similar law takes effect in the US that Facebook and all their apps leave the App Store completely. They absolutely can trivially walk people through the steps from their website and the apps that are already installed, and they already have the monopoly to force their users to deal with it.
Apple isn't Reddit, building a market by claiming to be open then locking it down. They built their market because the walled garden is a massively better product.
That's a loot box with extra steps. You get loot box physical trash and loot box digital trash. TCGs are the original microtransactions.
Now, the extra steps are a small barrier that makes it slightly less bad, because you have to physically go to a store or at least order and wait to get them. But it's not that much less bad.