Google Stadia is reportedly shutting down

[John Elden Ring]

Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

The rumor mill suggests that Google may be looking to kill off its game streaming platform, Stadia, for good before the end of the year.

gamerant.com

Google Stadia was originally announced in 2019, and while it was presented as the next big thing for gaming, it barely made a splash in the end. According to Twitter account Killed by Google, which keeps track of all the services that Google closes down, it might not be long before Stadia's time is up. It's a "he said, she said" situation, to be fair, but according to the account holder's sources, Google may shut down Stadia "by the end of summer." The source also claims that there'd be no license transfer of any sort, which means that any purchases made on Stadia would effectively be nullified as the service closes down.

Killed by Google's source compared this plan to what Google's done with its Play Music service. All subscribers would be informed 30 to 60 days ahead of Stadia's closure, and the final month of service would be refunded as-is, with no additional charges. Recently, it's been revealed that Google may salvage Stadia by changing it to Google Stream, an enterprise-oriented service. This may still be the plan, as it's unlikely that Google would simply discard the technology that went into keeping Stadia running.

 

[Papacheeks]

Rumor: Google Stadia May Be Getting Shut Down

The rumor mill suggests that Google may be looking to kill off its game streaming platform, Stadia, for good before the end of the year.

gamerant.com

Finally,

 

[Big Boss]

I feel bad for anyone who actually spent money on this platform or its games.

 

[nominedomine]

Cloud gaming is always the future but never the present. It has been available everywhere for some time now and no one cares, it's the least disruptive tech ever.

At least they had the courage to do it now instead of dragging it along for 20+ years.

 

[Vertigo]

Not surprising. Weren’t they selling off their tech and infrastructure. I remember Bungie being interested just due to remote work purposes (new builds being remotely tested and updated)

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Cloud gaming is always the future but never the present. It has been available everywhere for some time now and no one cares, it's the least disruptive tech ever.

At least they had the courage to do it now instead of dragging it along for 20+ years.

Stadia's business model was just bad. Geforce Now and xCloud are thriving, for example, because the business model works.

 

[nominedomine]

Stadia's business model was just bad. Geforce Now and xCloud are thriving, for example, because the business model works.

xCloud hardly had any impact on Gamepass growth it couldn't be any less disruptive than it is, it's almost as if it doesn't exist, yet has been available for quite some time already. It sort of works, yet nobody cares.

Only people like you think that playing over cloud is a good thing, people that don't care about quality of any sort.

 

[Theap99]

Unfortunate because the cloud infrastructure they have is the least laggy & most responsive I've experienced out of the bunch

 

[ethomaz]

I thought it was down already.

 

[Bryank75]

 

[nominedomine]

Unfortunate because the cloud infrastructure they have is the least laggy & most responsive I've experienced out of the bunch

If only people cared about any of that.

 

[IntentionalPun]

We had this thread yesterday.

The source is "some random user on Facebook."

Gamerant are hacks lol

The obvious caveat to this rumor, of course, is that it's unconfirmed and unverified. Even Killed by Google mentions that these claims aren't necessarily true

 

[Killer_Sakoman]

It doesn't matter if rumor is correct. Stadia been unofficially dead since 2019

 

[Gods&Monsters]

They are going to sell their technology to third-parties like EA and Ubisoft.

 

[Zeroing]

Well another Google thing for their long list of stuff they closed...

 

[IntentionalPun]

 

[rofif]

Reportedly is not rumours

 

[Deleted member 140]

I am not sure it even launched. Is Stadia... An actual thing? I always forget that it supposedly exists.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Stadia recently introduced "click to play demos" (free, no account needed) and announced an expansion into Mexico.

The Mexico expansion in particular makes no sense if they are shutting down, but the click to play demos are also deals they are making with game devs.

The most logical assumption is they at least have some short-ish term goals for Stadia and it's shutdown isn't imminent in a planning sense... does that mean some exec can't come in and say "shut it all down?"... sure, it could happen.. but it doesn't add up that internally Google is planning their exit in the next month.

I hate Stadia and all of cloud gaming but these companies have long term plans for cloud gaming.. they all still think it will take off big, and they want to have their tech tested for when it pops off.

Google halted game development which was costing them hundreds of millions but didn't shut down Stadia.. and keeps releasing games and features on the service.. they likely don't want to cut it off until it becomes REALLY clear that cloud gaming is destined to fail.