timppu: A streaming gaming service doesn't really offer similar benefits over buying your games from a digital store (you don't have to exit your home and you can play your game any time you want, even if you buy it from Steam or GOG), plus there is the pricing problem as a streaming gaming services need oodles of CPU/GPU/RAM power on the server farms that someone (=customers) have to pay for, much more so than Netflix streaming servers need. So Netflix can offer a "all you can eat" service for a relatively low monthly price, while a game streaming service less likely so (if they want to make profit). OnLive failed to make profit, Netflix didn't.
StingingVelvet: You admit consumers don't really care about owning movies, but you think games are a lot different. I don't. the average mainstream gamer doesn't replay stuff or collect them. That's how Gamestop ran a huge pawnshop industry for two decades, because people would play stuff and trade them in for other stuff. If Google and the rest eventually offer subscriptions with rotating "big" titles just like Netflix, decent graphics and input lag and no hardware cost, people are going to flock to it. I don't mean this as an insult at all, but I think you're naive about how different and niche the people on this forum are.
What I said has absolutely nothing to do with how important gamers consider "ownership". That would be relevant if we were having some kind of game rental vs. game ownership discussion, but we are not. (And for that argument: why didn't we ever have successful game rental services, where you can rent a game for a weekend? Maybe because games are a more time-consuming and attention-demanding past-time, than watching a 2-hour movie?)
My point was: what perk(s) does the streaming gaming model offers, over buying the same game (digitally or on retail) from e.g. Steam, or for your favorite console, like PS4?
Will it be cheaper in the streaming model? Most probably not, in fact I am pretty sure it will cost more to a normal customer (monthly fee + extra payment for any important games that are not free-to-play with microtransactions). I still stress this: someone has to pay for the CPU/GPU and RAM on the gaming server farms. They are not free.
"Then you don't have to buy a $8000 gaming PC to play AAA games!": Ok, but then you don't have to do that either if you buy the latest gaming console.
"Your gaming is trouble-free, unlike with your gaming PCs with many configurations!": Again, that argument falls flat on its face due to gaming consoles, which offer the very same perk. For gamers to which this is a big problem, they are already console gamers (instead of PC gamers).
"All AAA game developers and publishers will flock to streaming gaming services and never to release anything on Steam or consoles anymore!": Why would they do that (unless it was their own streaming service, and not Google's or Microsoft's)? The publishers care only about how much money they will make with the game, not whether the money comes through Steam/console sales or streaming services. The good old hen & egg problem: publishers will go "streaming only" only if most of their potential customers are there, and customers would switch to streaming gaming only if most of their desired games were there.
"There is a huge untapped market of new (casual) gamers who are not interested in games now, but would run screaming to new streaming gaming services, happily paying a fixed monthly payment + extra for game purchases for a new past-time that didn't interest them the slightest before!": Well, hardly. Such casual gamers are nowadays mobile, f2p and sometimes console gamers, or not gaming at all, and they'd probably be the last persons to subscribe to a paid gaming service. Like my wife, she would certainly not pay for Stadia to play Candy Crush Saga there.
Subscribers to streaming gaming services will be the very hardest core gamers, the kind who are happily paying for e.g. World of Warcraft and such every month, and using most of their time playing games.
Here is how I believe Stadia and other streaming gaming services will probably go:
Most games on those services will be available also through Steam, consoles etc. for the foreseeable future (because, why not?). The only exceptions are self-published games (by Google, MS etc. for their own service), or contract jobs where they are paying some game studios to make games only for their service.
Also, there will probably be lots of free-to-play multiplayer games there, with microtransactions. The same you can play on e.g. Steam etc., except that on Steam etc. you don't have the monthly base payment.
I believe they will have a rocky road (which is why OnLive, one of the pioneers of streaming gaming, died before them), but Google and MS certainly have muscles to keep the services going for a long time, even if they are operating on red. After all, Youtube is still alive and well even though to my understanding it is making a loss year after year.