Google Stadia owners will receive an extra buddy pass to share the cloud gaming platform with another this Christmas. The pass offers a friend or family member a three-month Stadia Pro subscription, worth $30 in total, and will allow access to the entire Stadia Pro game library and streaming platform for free.
Google Stadia launched in November to mixed responses from the initial batch of users. At its core is a fairly capable streaming system beaming games from Google’s extensive data centres down into your devices – be that a Pixel phone, Chromecast, or PC. It operates on a storefront system, meaning games have to be purchased via the Stadia Store in order to be streamed.
Either that or you pay $10 a month for Stadia Pro, which offers a select few games for free. So far that includes Destiny 2, Farming Simulator 19, Samurai Shodown, and Tomb Raider. All Stadia users today are Pro subscribers as a part of the pre-order package, which includes a single Buddy Pass to bring a friend into the fold. From today, Google has announced they’ll be able to invite another over Christmas, too.
Google announced the freebie on its official Stadia Twitter account (via Engadget).
In the spirit of the holidays, we have an early surprise gift for Stadia Founders: an extra Buddy Pass. Give it to a friend, a family member… anybody you know who loves games. pic.twitter.com/cn7muBPgfS
— Stadia (@GoogleStadia) December 16, 2019
How quickly these will be sent over to Founders hasn’t been specified. However, Google required a slight delay to ship the initial Buddy Pass codes, so be patient.
The free Buddy Pass is sure to get more users playing over the holidays. The real test for Stadia comes next year, however, likely around February/March. That’s when Google is planning on unleashing the service’s free tier – sure to be the true litmus test of the Stadia infrastructure.