Google Stadia | Shutting Down Jan. 2023

[Moonface]

It's almost as if Google is just trying to kill Stadia when they don't care to unban an account behind a game that has sold 30 million copies...

[Karo]

I mean Google bans and burns a lot of bridges regularly so I'm not surprised.

[Moonface]

What really sucks is that Google is the only way to really put games into Android phones. You either use the Play Store or go fuck yourself more or less unless. I get it's their OS but imagine if Windows forced you to only use the Microsoft store for games and programs.

[Karo]

Don't give Microsofr ideas if they could they would. Frankly I feel like we should expand on the ideas of a "monopoly" I mean really if it like two companies owning an entire industry shouldn't that count?

[Moonface]

So apparently Stadia closed down its game studios because Microsoft bought Bethesda but didn't divulge more than that. I'm guessing maybe they realise they can't compete in first party titles and are just going to try for third party stuff or something.

[Karo]

That sound like a very flimsy excuse really I mean lets face it if your console doesn't offer exclusives or a better experience what are you really selling? They took away basically anything possibly unique or good about it because they just don't want to put in the effort.

[Moonface]

That sound like a very flimsy excuse really I mean lets face it if your console doesn't offer exclusives or a better experience what are you really selling? They took away basically anything possibly unique or good about it because they just don't want to put in the effort.

Lack of effort definitely feels like a good reason when Stadia released a first party game (which doesn't work properly) and then the following day the development team that worked on that game were part of the closures. I thought it was bad enough they didn't want to continue supporting projects that were being worked on, but it's even worse that Google can't even support a game they actually got out the door.

But I think Google could pump out lots of good first party content but wouldn't avoid the problem of how do you fund all of that work? I have the same concerns for Xbox Game Pass putting so many first party games onto the service at launch alongside the digital/physical releases; how does $10 or $15 a month for Game Pass fund all those games when purchasing the games outright has gone up to $70? I mean at least Xbox can rely on a portion of their customers buying digital/physical copies to get some extra money in, but Stadia doesn't really have that. I think Stadia offers some games as an outright purchase, but that's a fee on top of your existing fees for Stadia to begin with (something that Xbox at least doesn't pull) which is a turn off, and then if that doesn't stop you then the idea of paying full price for a game that you can't potentially keep access to if Stadia just pulls the plug one day would be another reason to avoid doing that.

[Moonface]

Google is Shutting Down Stadia
After launching just three years ago, Google Stadia is officially shutting down on January 18, 2023.

Google will be refunding all Stadia hardware purchased through the Google Store, as well as all the games and add-on content purchased from the Stadia store.

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.

Source: The Verge

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Not shocked. Funnily enough I saw this thread last night and thought to myself "I wonder what's going on with Stadia these days", and today this news drops.

I'd like to hope this marks the end of anyone trying to do cloud gaming services like this. It works when put into an existing ecosystem as an option, like with PS3 streaming and Xbox Cloud, but it'll never work as a standalone offering.

At least anyone who wasted money on this doomed to fail project will get refunds. They should definitely think themselves lucky though; this could've easily been a venture by a company that wouldn't be willing to do this gesture.

[Mr EliteL]

Ha, surprise surprise. Has it really been three years? Not soon enough then. I also hope no one else tries to do what they attempted.

[Dragon Lord]

No surprise and good riddance.

[Moonface]

Ha, surprise surprise. Has it really been three years? Not soon enough then. I also hope no one else tries to do what they attempted.

Amazon are still doing their cloud based gaming service called Luna, which appears to still be in early access. No idea how that's been going because I've heard less about that than Stadia, but I won't be surprised if that one bites the dust eventually too. Once that happens that'll be the two biggest companies that have the infrastructure to support cloud gaming failing at doing a service dedicated to just that, which should really be the nail in the coffin for cloud only gaming services to be pursued again.

[Mr EliteL]

Ah yes Luna, completely forgot about that. Thought there was something else out there, but just couldn't remember.

[Moonface]

Ah yes Luna, completely forgot about that. Thought there was something else out there, but just couldn't remember.

Luna will likely not fail as it seems to be incredibly limited. It's subscription based via Prime so there's no extra buy in, and it offers a rotating selection of games monthly which seems to only be about six every month, so I doubt it costs much money to run the service. It doesn't give me the impression that it's trying to compete with anything and seems to just be a complementary part of a Prime subscription for the time being.

The only other notable one yet to be mentioned is GeForce Now, but that's just a service to let you play the games you already own on PC via cloud streaming when you don't have direct access to said PC, so I suspect it wasn't hard for that service to get customers as a result of that offering.

Looks like Stadia was the last/only service on the market that was doing cloud gaming where you pay for games that can just go poof at any time.

[Frank]

I'm surprised Google is offering refunds. Let's see if they actually refund my Stadia device and Republique game purchase :-P

[Moonface]

I'm surprised Google is offering refunds. Let's see if they actually refund my Stadia device and Republique game purchase :-P

My belief is they're refunding every game purchase and every purchase of any hardware. The only thing I don't think is being refunded is any subscriptions, as I've not heard anything about those and seen people questioning it. I've seen more people asking for Google to enable Bluetooth on the Stadia controller though so it can be used with other systems since as a controller it isn't a bad design.

How did you find Stadia btw, assuming you used it?