Google Stadia is officially dead

Google Stadia

Google Stadia was already on life support; Google is finally killing it off completely.

Google has a habit of killing off projects. So many suspected that it was only a matter of time before Google Stadia got the ax. In fact, we published an article titled Google Stadia is a total bust. What went wrong? two years ago.

Well, that day has arrived. Google is officially killing off Stadia in January 2023. The good news: they plan to refund Stadia players for all hardware, game, and add-on purchases made through the Google Store or the Stadia Store.

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Here’s an excerpt from Phil Harrison’s announcement:

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.

We’re grateful to the dedicated Stadia players that have been with us from the start. 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. Players will continue to have access to their games library and play through January 18, 2023 so they can complete final play sessions. We expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023. We have more details for players on this process on our Help Center.

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.

Are you a Stadia player? What do you think about the news? Share your thoughts with us on the forums!