I woke up this morning to an email from Google. For today only, the Stadia Premiere Edition will be $99, $30 less than the regular sale price. The timing of this one-day sale is definitely no coincidence, and coincides with the launch of Doom Eternal, which is immediately available on the streaming service.

The Premiere Edition package includes a Stadia controller, a Chromecast Ultra dongle, and three months of Stadia Pro, a paid subscription tier for $9.99 per month. Stadia Pro offers 5.1 surround sound and can play games at up to 4K resolution (well, sort of). It also offers occasional ("periodic" according to Google) free games and discounts on certain game purchases. The free Stadia subscription tier is not yet available. [The regular edition is $59.99 and the deluxe edition is $89.99.

I wish there was some option when game streaming is the only option for "Doom Eternal" due to lack of hardware to run locally. Unfortunately, Bethesda has withdrawn all games from Stadia's competitor, GeForce Now, with the exception of games that stream games they own on platforms like Steam, rather than having them purchase a streaming-only version. So for now, if you want to stream Doom Eternal, Stadia is your choice, but we are not too impressed.

Discount or no discount, Stadia is a tough sell, especially for a game like Doom that could be killed by input lag or some other glitch. Needless to say, another option would be to build a gaming PC, but even if that is out of your budget, current gaming consoles are currently $200-$300 and offer an experience free of network congestion worries. If game streaming is indeed the future, I don't see that future coming anytime soon.