Google Shutting Down Stadia, to Refund All Stadia Purchases - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 29 September 2022 / 5,305 Views
Google announced it is shutting down its cloud gaming service, Stadia, on January 18, 2023.
Google will be refunding all Stadia purchases including hardware purchased through the Google Store, as well as all software, and add-on content purchased through the Stadia store. The majority of refunds are expected to be completed by mid-January 2023.
"For many years, Google has invested across multiple aspects of the gaming industry." said Stadia Vice President and General Manager Phil Harrison. "We help developers build and distribute gaming apps on Google Play and Google Play Games. Gaming creators are reaching audiences around the world on YouTube through videos, live streaming and Shorts. And our cloud streaming technology delivers immersive gameplay at massive scale.
"A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia. And while Stadia's approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn't gained the traction with users that we expected so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service."
Google plans to use the technology that powered Stadia in other areas of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and its Augmented Reality (AR) efforts. It will also be made available to industry partners.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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This was obvious from the moment Google announced the platform. Nice to see they are refunding the purchases, though.
Stadia was DOA as soon as they announced that full price game purchases would be required and that the user would have no way to download and own the games locally. The Microsoft, Sony, and Nividia business models are all better for the customer
Good thing they did. Those 6 people would have been really upset otherwise.
Unlike the other apps Google killed unceremoniously, this had a ton of advertisement put into it. They couldn't just take the money and run without risking expensive litigation.
There was one or two users in VGC that was very vocal defenders of Stadia.
I think Stadia could have done a lot better if it had been launched in a stable alpha form while they added the remaining features they'd promised, and then moved to a free beta once it was feature complete, and then finally a release version that cost money. They were charging money for a product that wasn't EVEN up to the standards of a beta product yet. That unsurprisingly didn't go over well.
They could have monetized the service even in its alpha stage via selling games (or, perhaps even better, renting games, since that would avoid any long-term commitment on Google's part should the service be cancelled).
Don't think so. For me their project was dead the moment they decided to charge to both buy a game and them to play it while never being able to play offline.
For sure, what you say made it DOA with many gamers. But not all. It still had a small but dedicated userbase right to the end, despite everything you said. My thought is that more people would have tried it had they not charged money for an unfinished product. And it would have been the butt of far fewer jokes, too. Maybe it would have met the same end, but it wouldn't have been quite as big an embarrassment, at a minimum!
Sure if you could play some stuff for free on alpha and their proposition was subscription for the content (with tiers if needed) sure it would have done much better =p
To the surprise of no one.
I'm surprised Stadia lasted as long as it did. It felt like it was dead on arrival, but for some reason they kept it going.
At least they're giving refunds.
i wonder if Gylt will get ported to another console, I thought the game looked like decent.
It is an at least decent game. I disliked the ending, not from a story perspective but they changed the gameplay and let you drop all the enhancements you gathered throughout the game to make the finale exciting. I hate then this is done. But besides that it is a pretty good game, felt nice to play it.
I agree, this should be ported.
And nothing of value was lost.
Next fight to win : Google Map API insane price which has ruined and still ruins today many small business.
So... If I go buy a game on Stadia now it will basically be free? Well, that's the first time it has actually seemed appealing. Really should have used that business model from the start.
Time to celebrate! This was so easy to predict when they announced it. Now time to dance on the grave!
There were people who claimed that this generation would be a battle between Microsoft and Google when this thing launched.
No way! Some people just don't know what they're talking about.
You mean Phil Spencer?
Yeah, that would be the guy.
the controller looks like a cheap 3rd party $25 dollar amazon controller
It is not :) I have one (and will get a refund for it looks like); and I would say that the quality of the controller is probably the same as the Play Station 5 one; it feels super premium.
(And to give you a comparison; I would say the standard Xbox Series controller does not feel as premium as the Play Station 5 controller at all; it feels way cheaper; the Stadia one is way above that; the textures, etc.).
I think you have never touch an Xbox Controller...
What a weird thing to say :) I have probably 10 Xbox Consoles at home; 3 or 4 elite controllers on top of all the standard ones . I love and prefer the Xbox controller layout by far. But I’m talking about the texture and build quality of the standard Xbox controller (and the elite is just the best controller o ur there imo). This is just personal taste and opinion anyway
It feels a bit cheaper to me. Maybe I’m biased cause I’m using the elite ones since several years only. So when I pick up a normal one it feels inferior :) probably just that. But the Stadia controller def. Does not feel like a cheap 25$ controller
Different tastes perhaps.
Google still retains a huge presence in gaming by way of Google Play Store. However for the foreseeable future it will remain constrained by Android hardware limitations but that should change in the future as chip technology improves further.
Streaming just ain't the future
I think the ultimate problem is that Stadia was a far worse version of Xbox cloud gaming. That and the fact that they released it unfinished spelled death from day one.
This service felt anachronistic when it launched, and thinking of it now is like remembering a weird joke you never 'got'.
So, Stadia gets added to the "Killed by Google" list as expected.
Who would imagine?
Better yet is pretend they have fostered gaming just by having a store and making billions on it without giving back to community in form of investing in gaming.
Did Google publish or develop any games for Stadia?
From what I know they developed some but never released them. They may have published some they paid for rights on outside studios.
Just one. Then they bought a studio, Cancelled projects then nothing until today.
They dropped their first-party development before it released any game. I know they have Gylt as exclusive, there might be more I am not aware of. Baldur's Gate III is also on PC, even though Google supported the development.
