Google is shutting down Stadia and refunding all purchases

Cloud gaming service Google Stadia will shut down on Jan. 18, the search giant said in a blog post Thursday. Google will refund all Stadia hardware purchased through its Google Store, along with any games and add-on content purchased from the Stadia Store.

The tech giant is aiming to have all refunds completed by mid-January.

People using Stadia can still access their game libraries, including Pro games, if you had an active Pro subscription as of Thursday. In an email sent to gamers, Google warned that publisher support for games may vary and it’s possible that your gaming experience will be impacted during the shutdown period (suggesting that some games could disappear or lose features prematurely).

It seems that Google didn’t notify many developers about the shutdown prior to the public blog post. Destiny 2 creator Bungie tweeted about it on Thursday create an “Action Plan”. following the announcement. Assassin’s Creed Developer Ubisoft intends to allow players who bought its games on Stadia to bring them to the PC through its digital distribution service Ubisoft Connect, it said on Friday.

Google spoke to at least one studio (Luxor Evolved developers Olde Skuul) on the reimbursement of lost revenue as a result of the abrupt change, Axios reported on Friday.

Phil Harrison, Stadia’s vice president and general manager, detailed the move, citing Google’s investments in games through its digital distribution service Google Play, cloud technology and YouTube streaming.

“A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service called Stadia,” he said in the blog post. “And while Stadia’s approach to streaming games for consumers is built on a strong technological foundation, it hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected, leading us to make the difficult decision to discontinue our Stadia streaming service.”

Many of the Stadia team members will be reassigned to other roles within Google, the blog post states.

Launched in November 2019, the cloud gaming service received mixed reviews.

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“Stadia isn’t delivering new games [at the moment], it’s just trying to offer a new way of streaming. One you can already get from other providers,” wrote CNET’s Scott Stein at the time. “Until Google finds a way to loop YouTube and build truly unique, competitive games at scale, Stadia isn’t worth your time.”

Although I have some solid games in its library, Stadia failed to evolve. Google closed his in-house development studio in 2021, suggesting his gaming ambitions are shifting away from Stadia.

Stadia had plenty of those too Cloud Gaming ContestWith Xbox, PlayStationNVIDIA and Amazon all offer alternatives.

It wasn’t a total bust for the company, as Harrison said the technology can be applied to YouTube, Google Play, and its augmented reality projects.

This technology is also made available to Google’s industry partners. Sony gave its own streaming service a head start in 2015 Purchase of OnLive’s patents — a Early game streaming service — just before the once-promising startup shuts down.