Google launched its cloud gaming service, Stadia back in 2019. Since then, the service added achievements, free subscription tier, new games added to its library, and more However, it didn’t gain the traction that the company had hoped as seen with the shutdown of Stadia Games & Entertainment. So today, Google has announced that the service is winding down. Stadia players can continue playing through January 18, 2023.
In a blog post, Phil Harrison, Vice President and General Manager, Stadia broke it all down. “For many years, Google has invested across multiple aspects of the gaming industry. 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.”
All Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store will be refunded. Harrison said that they expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023.
Talking about the future, Harrison said “the underlying technology platform that powers Stadia has been proven at scale and transcends gaming. We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts — as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed. We remain deeply committed to gaming, and we will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators.
“For the Stadia team, building and supporting Stadia from the ground up has been fueled by the same passion for games that our players have. Many of the Stadia team members will be carrying this work forward in other parts of the company,” Harrison concluded. “We’re so grateful for the groundbreaking work of the team and we look forward to continuing to have an impact across gaming and other industries using the foundational Stadia streaming technology.”