Say Goodbye to Google Stadia

Google Stadia, the cloud gaming service that was launched on November 19, 2019, is coming to an end. In a message sent to their users, it was announced that the service will end on January the 18th 2023. This news may come as a surprise to many gamers, who were looking forward to using Google’s new service.

Google to discontinue Stadia service

However, it seems that the company has decided to focus on other projects. It is unclear what will happen to the games that have been purchased by users, but it is likely that they will no longer be playable after the service ends. This news is a blow to the gaming community, as Google Stadia was seen as a promising new platform. However, it seems that the company is not interested in continuing to support the service. It is unclear what the future of cloud gaming will be, but it seems that Google will not be a part of it for now.

Gamers can still play the titles that they have access to in their library until the 18th of January in the coming year, but it’s no longer possible to opt-in for Stadia Pro subscriptions if you weren’t subscribed by the 29th of September.

Is all lost?

No savegames will survive the service end of the Google Stadia cloud gaming platform. However, Google informs their users that hardware, games, and add-ons that people bought will be refunded. While Google expects a huge workload to process all the refund requests, they estimate that they will be done with everything by the time they plan to shut the service down on the 18th of January in 2023. So, after about two years of service, Google will shut down its cloud gaming experiment that was aimed to become a competitor to the Microsoft Xbox Game Pass, Amazon Luna, and Sony PS Now, to a degree.

As far as the hardware goes, research shows that the Stadia controllers can still be used in other ways even if Stadia no longer exists. Just some hours ago,  Samuel Tolbert, a reporter for Android Central, part of Future US, published an article about what the Stadia controller still can be used for. As an example, they write, “Best answer: You can use your Stadia controller to play games on PC via Steam. Alternatively, your Stadia controller also works with Xbox Cloud Gaming for Android.” So you’ll at least not need to throw the hardware away. Similarly, you can also still use the HDMI dongle as a high-performance Chromecast endpoint to stream content to a display.

Google did not disclose official figures on how many Stadia Pro subscribers they got or how profitable the service was, but seeing how they often would provide zero-cost trials, like the free set that I got as well for testing as a normal user, is an indicator for the service to grow well organically. Next to the official end-of-service email to their user base, Phil Harrison, Vice President and General Manager for Google Stadia, also shares his views in a public blog post. Possibly the last time Stadia is mentioned. Goodbye, Stadia, we hardly knew ye.

Photo credit: The feature image has been done by Silivan Munguarakarama.