Google has officially announced that its cloud-streaming platform, Google Stadia, will be discontinued from January 18th, 2023 and that all purchases made by players will be refunded before that date.
Writing on the officialGoogle Blog, Stadia Vice President and General Manager Phil Harrison explained that despite the service being a technological success, the platform didn’t gain traction with consumers in the way that the company expected, and that as a result, Google has decided to call time on the streaming platform.
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“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,” Harrison said, “so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service.”
The Google Stadia servers will be switched off on January 18th, 2023. What does this mean for Stadia players in the meantime? Well, you’ll still be able to play any games you’ve bought up until the turn-off date. However, you won’t be able to buy any new games, nor will you be able to purchase any in-game content like expansions, skins, battle passes, and so on. Stadia’s Pro subscription package has also been removed along with Ubisoft+, which allowed players to access any and all Ubisoft games on Stadia without having to make a full purchase. Essentially, the platform is already done and players are being given a three-month grace period to finish up their games.
It’s tough, especially for those who made Stadia their go-to platform for gaming. It’s reasonably cheap, it doesn’t require any expensive hardware, and in fairness, it had some top-tier gaming experiences from the big AAA releases right down to the cult-classic indies. There is a silver lining, though; Google will be refunding all purchases.
The details aren’t 100% clear at the time of writing and the Stadia shutdown FAQ states numerous times that “more details” will follow in the coming weeks in regards to refunds for hardware. For games, things should be a little easier. Any games bought during the platform’s short life will be refunded to the original payment method. It doesn’t matter if you only made a one-off purchase or threw thousands into the service, you’ll get the money back, with Google aiming to process the majority of refunds before the Stadia shut-down date of January 13th, 2023. This also goes for future pre-orders, so if you’ve already pledged the cash to a future release that will never see a stream on Stadia, you’ll be getting this refunded, too.
For hardware, Google states that in the majority of cases, hardware bought directly through Google (controllers, streaming kits) will not need to be returned, though the exact method of refunds is still being determined, and more information will be provided in the near future. If you bought a Google Stadia kit, keep an eye on theFAQ pagefor updates as each region will likely have differing policies when it comes to refunds.
The writing was on the wall for a while with speculation that Google would be adding Stadia to the growing Google graveyard after the Alphabet-owned company announced the closure of its in-house development studios. In fact, the service was called “doomed” since even before it officially launched, with many hardcore gamers being skeptical about Google’s ability to hold solid ground in the gaming industry with only the cloud to power its platform. Sadly, it seems they were right.
Stadia worked as intended and up until now, it’s still one of the best cloud-streaming experiences available. The future for the technology is uncertain, though it could well end up in the hands of traditional industry players such as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, all of which have embraced cloud gaming to various degrees.
The statement from Google said that the technology has been proven to work at scale and could be deployed in other areas of Google’s business, as well as being made available to industry partners.
