Stadia

After nearly three years, Google has decided to winnow its video game ambitions because Stadia was less popular than it had anticipated.

Google will refund all game hardware purchases made through the Google Store, as well as game purchases made in the Stadia Store, Mr. The company is set to shutter Hangouts, its messaging app, in November. And YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, announced in January that it would stop making original content. He said the company expected to complete most refunds by the middle of January. The product debuted almost three years ago, promising to revolutionize how people play video games. But it failed to catch on with enough gamers.

The company will issue refunds as it shuts down its ambitious cloud gaming service.

At least [half a dozen](https://www.protocol.com/jade-raymonds-haven-stadia) employees followed her. [isn’t a complete shock](https://www.wired.com/story/google-should-kill-stadia/). On [blog post](https://blog.google/products/stadia/message-on-stadia-streaming-strategy/) that “many of the Stadia team members will be carrying this work forward in other parts of the company” without providing further details. [announced](https://www.wired.com/story/google-stadia-cloud-gaming/) that it would create its own in-house studio to work on original projects. Announcing its closure today, Harrison said that while Stadia was built on “a strong technology foundation” it hadn’t “gained traction with users.” It’s a costly and embarrassing failure for Google—which will also refund the cost of every piece of hardware bought through its store, as well as games and add-ons bought through Stadia’s store. At the time, Stadia’s official Twitter account [bit back](https://twitter.com/GoogleStadia/status/1552989433590214656), claiming that “Stadia is not shutting down.” Two months later, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Retreat part of a company-wide effort by tech giant to save money and narrow focus.

As a part of the shuttering, Google will be refunding all hardware and software purchases made through the Google and Stadia storefronts respectively, though ...

Many of the Stadia team members will be carrying this work forward in other parts of the company.” Despite the closure, Harrison claims Google will remain committed to their endeavours within the gaming industry: [Despite pretty respectable third-party support](https://press-start.com.au/news/2019/06/07/google-stadia-release-date-pricing-and-games-announced/), the service simply never caught on with consumers and by [Stadia general manager Phil Harrison’s own admission](https://blog.google/products/stadia/message-on-stadia-streaming-strategy/) never gained the traction it had hoped for in the few years since launching.

The company said Stadia servers will be turned off Jan. 18, and most refunds should be completed by then. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said recently he wants to ...

Google said it will be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store and all game and add-on content purchases at the Stadia store. [saying](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/07/google-ceo-says-he-hopes-to-make-company-20percent-more-efficient-hints-at-potential-cuts.html) he wants to make the company 20% more efficient. Alphabet's stock price is down 34% this year and in July the company [reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/26/alphabet-is-set-to-report-q2-earnings-after-the-bell-.html) disappointing revenue and profit numbers. [FAQ page](https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/12790109) says. Speculation swirled about the potential for a broader cut to the service. "We’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service,” he wrote.

The video game streaming platform will be closed down in January 2023, with Google offering refunds to those who bought Stadia.

Players will continue to have access to their games library and play through January 18 2023 so they can complete final play sessions. “We will be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store. 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,” he said.

While other cloud gaming platforms used a variety of business models that allowed consumers to either play games they already owned or those made available via ...

[mandate](https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/new-york-follows-california-mandating-zero-emissions-vehicles-by-2035/) requiring all new cars sold in the state to be EVs by 2035. [OpenAI’s DALL-E](https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/sourcecode/dall-e-future-ai-art), the slew of AI-generated image tools that followed, and what the future looks like for images based on text input. This followed a [damning Business Insider report](https://www.businessinsider.com/google-stadia-stream-plan-partnerships-peloton-bungie-gaming-service-2022-2) in February 2022 that said Google had “deprioritized” the consumer side of the business in favor of trying to salvage its streaming tech as an enterprise business. [wrote](https://twitter.com/GoogleStadia/status/1552989433590214656) on July 29, “Stadia is not shutting down. Each has a dreamlike quality that makes you feel like you’re looking at something incredible while also being under the influence of drugs (not that I would know). Silicon Valley is no longer the sole hub where tech lives and thrives, with tech scenes flourishing in cities like New York and Los Angeles. Rest assured we're always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro.” Now, two months later, the inevitable has in fact happened. Google had a rough 2020 as it tried to attract new users to Stadia on the promise of exclusive games, big first-party releases like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, and an expanding feature set that would fulfill those lofty promises made a year prior. Although companies have been trying to crack game streaming for years, no company arrived on the scene with as much ambition as Google back in 2019. For many industry watchers, it was the inevitable and unfortunate conclusion to arguably Google’s riskiest gaming gamble. And that shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. Stadia, Google’s foray into cloud gaming, will shut down in January, marking the end of a pretty brutal three years.

In 2022, cloud gaming is increasingly popular and affordable — thanks in part to learning from what Stadia did wrong. Google announced Thursday that it would ...

[visibly made as a reaction to it](https://www.geekwire.com/2020/analysis-amazon-makes-another-bid-relevance-games-industry-luna-streaming-service/). Analysts have been expecting Stadia to be dispatched to the “Google graveyard” for at least the last year, but Harrison’s announcement was still quite sudden. Google’s vision for Stadia was clearly that it was meant to be a sort of virtual console, to the extent where it charged users full retail price for its cloud versions of individual games. The overwhelming impact of Stadia, then, appears to have been as a negative example. This includes using cloud technology to effectively emulate the PlayStation 3, which is otherwise notoriously difficult, for the purpose of streaming games from its library. You can subscribe to Game Pass on the Ultimate tier to have the option of playing games via the cloud on console, PC, or supported mobile devices. Stadia wanted to charge full MSRP for what amounts to conditional server access, which could theoretically be yanked at any time due to a contract expiration or licensing conflict. Physical media and local installation both have their drawbacks, but neither will abruptly cease to exist due to sudden corporate whim.) It abruptly shuttered its internal development studios and shifted Stadia to effectively being a low-overhead games publishing service. Further, Google had already made substantial investments that indicated it planned to become a major player in mainstream games publishing and development. Stadia’s various storefronts have already been shut down, but users can continue to play games that are already in their Stadia library until the service officially goes down Jan. Stadia’s current team members will be reassigned, while the service’s underlying technologies will be repurposed for use on YouTube, Google Play, and augmented/mixed reality projects.

While it's a great (and necessary) move that Google has chosen to refund all players hardware and software purchases through Google Stadia ahead of the ...

Google Stadia Social Media Manager may not have been privy to this information at the time, but it reflects a larger pattern of Google maintaining they had the utmost faith in Google Stadia and despite scaling it back and shuttering first party developments, always maintained it would soldier on. Google has said it wants to keep utilizing Stadia streaming tech in other ways, but for now, it feels a bit chaotic. Even they don’t seem to have been given a heads up about this, with only this to tell Axios about their Stadia games, "We'll have more specifics to share about our games on Stadia at a later date." Bungie, maker of Destiny, recently bought by Sony, has been using Stadia to help with its widespread work-from-home development on the game, and while the Stadia shutdown announcement seems to indicate they may still work with partners on uses of the tech, it’s unclear when that may take shape, and what immediate plans may have to shift because of the pending shutdown. That’s a lot of time and effort and money that could have been saved had they known this was coming. And there’s the playerbase itself, where 5,000 Destiny players play the game on Stadia daily, which was once a flagship featured game for the service.

Google is shutting down its cloud gaming service Stadia after 3 years of unsuccessful attempts to attract players. The servers will be live for players ...

[Kotaku](https://kotaku.com/stadia-leadership-praised-development-studios-for-great-1846281384) believes that the trigger was the announcement of the acquisition of ZeniMax Media by Microsoft. [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-26/google-video-game-unit-stadia-struggled-to-be-googley-enough), Google did not understand the game business and were just wasting time and money. One of the reasons that players and the media have repeatedly pointed out to Google is the lack of interesting games and exclusives.

Come January, Google will be shutting down its Stadia cloud gaming service. In some ways, the move isn't much of a surprise — as my colleagues have pointed ...

The company said it was coming to all Stadia titles in “2022 and beyond.” With 200+ titles currently available, we expect to have another 100+ games added to the platform this year, and currently have 50 games available to claim in Stadia Pro.” [made it even less expensive to join the service](https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/19/22790946/google-stadia-birthday-premiere-edition-price-free). I get the sense that they want to scale slowly and see where this goes.” Now, there almost certainly won’t be a single game launching on the service in 2023. Gwen Frey, the developer of Google Stadia launch title Kine, 2023 is really kind of where we’re aiming our sights.” “It’s not like Google cancels every fucking thing they make.” Spoiler: Raymond would leave Google just over a year later when it If you’ve been listening to what the company said about the service, though, you’d be forgiven for being blindsided. There will be some coming out every year, and more and more each year.” Come January, Google will be shutting down its Stadia cloud gaming service.

Once Stadia shuts down in January, players want to be able to use their controllers on PC rather than let them go to waste, asking Google to update ...

Become a supporter of Eurogamer and you can view the site completely ad-free, as well as gaining exclusive access to articles, podcasts and conversations that will bring you closer to the team, the stories, and the games we all love. The controller already contains Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities, but can't be connected to other consoles or PCs. We want to make Eurogamer better, and that means better for our readers - not for algorithms. made directly from Google will not need to be returned", including Stadia controllers. [update the firmware itself](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/xrcla6/proposal_for_stadia_shutdown_update_the/), whilst others have simply asked for the firmware to be made [open-source](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/xrc9im/now_that_stadia_is_being_shut_down_can_google/) so members of the Stadia community can [create an application themselves](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/xrciqv/google_please_push_an_update_to_the_stadia/). ["information or roadmap"](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/xre59e/comment/iqf3vpw) on whether Bluetooth would be unlocked.

Closeup of two hands holding a purple Google Stadia gamepad, with a blurred monitor in Photo by Olly Curtis/Future Publishing via Getty Images. Has anything in ...

[announced The Finals](https://www.polygon.com/23373768/embark-studios-new-game-the-finals-preview-free-to-play-shooter-alpha), a multiplayer shooter whose complicated, destruction-based physics engine is handled on the server side. When Ouya’s vision of bringing Android mobile games to home theater setups imploded in the same year, none that crowdfunded console’s backers got anything back. [paid eight figures](https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1365381358416232454), according [to some reports](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-26/google-video-game-unit-stadia-struggled-to-be-googley-enough), to bring established console and PC titles, like Red Dead Redemption 2, The Division, or the latest NBA 2K, to their platform — at full price. “Battle royale games can go from hundreds of players today to thousands of players tomorrow.” From the GDC 2019 announcement, Stadia was marketed like a finished product. Has anything in video gaming launched hotter, and returned to Earth harder, than Google Stadia?

Few thought Google's troubled streaming service, Stadia, might ever become a dominant player in the gaming industry, but almost no one expected it to shut ...

[As of yesterday](https://twitter.com/DestinyBulletn/status/1575545958158725121), there were more concurrent Destiny players on Stadia than Halo Infinite players on Steam. “I don’t want to stay under the same leadership,” they said. “We just learned about Stadia shutting down and have begun conversations about next steps for our players,” Bungie [posted](https://twitter.com/DestinyBulletn/status/1575558847250411521) on its support forum yesterday. [one of Stadia’s first big gets](https://kotaku.com/sources-destiny-2-is-coming-to-google-stadia-getting-1835270126), with Bungie making a big push to bring streaming players into the fold of its sprawling space MMO. “It’s funny, most of the world views Stadia as that gimmick that nobody bothered with,” Both games were a key selling point for Stadia, and [Bloomberg previously reported](https://kotaku.com/report-stadia-blew-millions-on-red-dead-redemption-2-a-1846367180) that Google shelled out tens of millions to secure those and other big blockbusters, the purchases of which it will now be refunding to all players. “We knew Stadia was on the chopping board but I guess we still had hopes that it was so much investment that it was cheaper to keep it going, even with no new games, than to kill it,” one current employee told Kotaku. The important update turned out to be that Google was killing Stadia by the beginning of next year, according to two current employees who wish to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press about company business. [shared a screenshot on Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/xrcea4/thanks_phil_harrison_thats_3_failed_launches_for/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) of a meeting invite from Harrison. “We were also due to launch Soccer Story on Stadia in November, and that has money attached to it that we’re meant to receive. “We just had communication with [our partner manager] earlier in the week going through some next steps, so there was no indication that anything was changing.” Studios have partner managers at Stadia to help with the process of porting games, getting them certified, and any other issues that may come up during the collaboration.

Google is shutting down its cloud gaming storefront just a few years after it launched.

[while Stadia is dying](https://kotaku.com/google-says-everything-at-stadia-is-fine-as-the-water-1846896205), the tech behind it will still be available to “industry partners” for other joint-ventures, like AT&T’s recent attempt to bring Batman: Arkham Knight to smartphones via streaming. Google’s track record, and Stadia’s own past, call into question whether it was ever properly committed to the ambitious endeavor. [it wasn’t ready for primetime](https://kotaku.com/google-s-stadia-just-ain-t-it-1839930224). [30% off30% Off Indacloud's Seriously Fun Cannabis Products](https://indacloud.co/delta-8-gummies/) [video game streaming service, Stadia](https://kotaku.com/google-stadia-game-streaming-cloud-cyberpunk-witcher-1849418882), on January 18th, 2023, the company announced today. Stadia, meanwhile, reportedly struggled to get big games on its platform, [spending tens of millions](https://kotaku.com/report-stadia-blew-millions-on-red-dead-redemption-2-a-1846367180) to attract titles like Red Dead Redemption 2.

Google Stadia is officially being shut down, and few gamers are surprised that the cloud streaming service ultimately failed.

[shuttered Google products](https://www.androidauthority.com/failed-google-products-list-943812/) and services, Google’s technology ultimately failed because of Google’s fundamental misunderstanding of the market they were trying to enter. By the time Xbox and Nvidia started offering expanded cloud streaming options, it was clear to pretty much everyone that Stadia was finished. Were there enough of those people out there to support a service designed to address that problem? From top-to-bottom, Stadia was seemingly designed to appeal to users who either straight up didn’t want/need it or never felt compelled to give it a shot even if they didn’t already own a competitive alternative. However, it also must be said that Google never seemed too big on the idea of spending the money required to secure proper Stadia exclusives. There were reportedly talks about Google acquiring outside studios to develop Stadia titles, but it really sounds like those studios saw the writing on the wall. The problem was that people either already owned those games on some other platform or intended to buy them for the platform they already owned. In a perfect world, Google Stadia would have been that alternative to modern video game consoles that I alluded to above. However, I’ve personally always gotten the impression that Stadia never really got the full support it needed to grow into something special. The idea of being able to access the biggest modern games without having to own a specific piece of hardware was undeniably appealing. “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.” [shut down](https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378713/google-stadia-shutting-down-game-streaming-january-2023) Stadia (the cloud-based video game streaming service they launched in 2019), and it’s already clear that few people are surprised by that seemingly surprising announcement.

There's Bluetooth inside the Stadia controller, but it's only used when you're setting up Stadia, either with a TV, a computer with the Chrome browser, or a ...

The company's pledge to create " [A circular Google](https://sustainability.google/commitments/circular-economy/#a-circular-google)" states that the company believes that by "incorporating circularity into our designs from inception, things created today can become the resources of tomorrow and enable reuse, repair, and recovery." At least one Github project reportedly [improves the Stadia controller's Windows function](https://github.com/RexSonic/StadiEm/tree/0b01e04a2b17fbc60606c70a8712d3d63cddecc4) (as an Xbox controller). One intrepid Stadia fan, Parth Shah, had already cobbled together a " [Stadia Wireless](https://github.com/helloparthshah/StadiaWireless/tree/c7f9d667611795b9a3305e60a949872a5d9b5ad0)" Python hack to get the Stadia controller working "wirelessly": connected to a phone, then that phone connecting to a Windows PC over Wi-Fi, emulating a standard Xbox controller. The reuse and recovery would be much appreciated by customers. Valve, makers of the Steam PC gaming store and assorted hardware connected to it, But Valve made Steam Controllers viable for lots of other platforms and prevented them from ending up in, at best, e-waste sorting facilities. Some have suggested that the full refunds give Google more leeway to ignore the limited function of their devices post-shutdown. Hopefully [G]oogle does something about it." They'd like to see Google unlock Bluetooth to make their favorite something more than a USB-only controller and avoid a lot of plastic and circuit board trash. "They created trash and they at least owe it to me to do their best within reason to prevent millions of otherwise perfectly good controllers from filling landfills," another wrote. Google is refunding players the cost of all their hardware and game purchases. Bluetooth Classic may be implemented at a later date."

Developers making games for Stadia were just as surprised as everyone else to learn that Google's cloud gaming service would be shutting down.

“They gave any new game that came out a try, they were really supportive of devs and of each other, and in general somehow the platform cultivated one of the nicest, least toxic player groups I’ve seen on any platform. “We were realistic in that we might have made $10,000 profit tops on the Stadia version.” So we really wanted to release the game on Stadia out of appreciation for them supporting the original game as much as they did.” But smaller developers and publishers may not be able to offer the same sorts of perks to their Stadia players. “For whatever reason, because Stadia was so maligned by the players who didn’t play it, the actual Stadia players were almost like... While Sheffield says Hyper Gunsport will be available on many platforms, “Stadia was a pillar for us, because we knew by launching into Pro we’d get a significant chunk of revenue, enough to pay our dev costs back all by itself.” For Olde Skuul, not being able to launch on Stadia won’t sink the studio. “I follow the link and it’s like ‘oh, okay.’” Olde Skuul had planned to launch Luxor Evolved on Stadia Pro on November 1st and was even planning to meet with Google on Friday to discuss the release plan. Another aspect of Stadia’s shutdown is that the few exclusives on the platform will be unplayable, like Q-Games’ PixelJunk Raiders. For Necrosoft, according to Sheffield, “all I know is [Google] said they’re going to try to do something for us,” but he doesn’t have any details. And because Google has already shut off commerce in the Stadia store, developers can’t make money from selling their games during the last months of the service’s life. Olde Skuul also had Stadia-exclusive features planned for the game but is now allowed to implement them on other platforms. “I woke up getting ready for my workday, and I see on our Discord private chat for the company that one of my employees sent a message saying ‘is this true?,’ with a link,” Rebecca Ann Heineman, CEO of Olde Skuul, said in an interview with The Verge.