Why Google Is Shutting Down Stadia and Refunding Gamers
The gaming industry has become a graveyard for many big tech companies who venture into it with big dreams of success only to suffer the nightmare of radical failure.
The latest victim is Google, which will shut down its Stadia cloud gaming service and refund players. Here’s why.
Google Stadia Is Shutting Down
According to a post onThe Keyword, Stadia will shut down for good on January 18, 2023, and refund all gamers (refund details to be announced later):
A few years ago, we …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.
The Stadia platform and game servers will remain online until January 18, 2023:
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. We expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023.
In addition, Google has disabled all in-game commercial transactions. However, most games will continue to play as normal.
Gamers will not have to return the refunded hardware, so this is a total loss for Google. Stadia Pro subscriptions are not eligible for refund, but gamers will not have to pay any further charges.
Why Is Google Killing Stadia?
Although there areseveral reasons why cloud gaming shouldn’t become mainstream, there are specific reasons why Stadia failed.
1. Stadia’s Disastrous Launch
Google launched and marketed Stadia without key features such as family sharing, wireless controller support on phones or PC, Buddy Pass, and Crowd Play. In other words, Stadia launched without the ability to play against or collaborate with family and friends.
First impressions are everything, especially in the gaming community. Once word got around that Stadia was launching without these key features, gamers did not sign up.
2. Internet Drawbacks
Stadia required gamers to have an internet connection of minimum 35 Mbps to get 4K resolution and 60FPS, or 10 Mbps for 720p and 60FPS. While it is true that this level of internet connection is accessible to many people, the harsh reality is that many gamers are not exactly swimming in money.
For many, data caps on internet access forbid unlimited streaming (cloud gaming soaks up a lot of data per hour). An Android gamer on a budget has a host ofAndroid games that don’t need internet at all, which should have given the Stadia crew something to think about.
Secondly, if your internet connection is unreliable, your gaming experience is unreliable. And if your device doesn’t support 4K, then how good your game looks and feels is accordingly limited.
All in all, these drawbacks made Stadia uncompetitive versus consoles and devices which host games locally at high resolution, thereby severely limiting mass adoption.
3. Weak Games Library
Stadia launched without strong exclusive titles. The situation was made worse when Google shut down Stadia’s in-house first-party development studio and lost its top game development executives.
Stadia wound up relying on developers of third-party titles which no one really cared that much about, and it continued to have a weak library throughout its short lifespan. Blockbuster titles like Minecraft and Fortnite were not interested in Stadia as they were already available elsewhere. As a result, few gamers were attracted to Stadia.
Stadia charged gamers a subscription fee of $9.99/month, or $99.99/year, and then on top of that gamers had to purchase games at full price. This didn’t make any sense for gamers, who would rather pay full price for a game they will own forever on their console or PC.
In addition to this, streaming services such as PlayStation Plus or Xbox Game Pass offer much better value for money over Stadia, in addition to their much better-developed ecosystems.
As theBBCnotes:
What works for Xbox and PlayStation is difficult to replicate when their customers have already shelled out on consoles and subscriptions - and the firms behind them, Microsoft and Sony, have lucrative deals in place with the world’s biggest games publishers.
Stadia Never Stood a Chance
According toBusiness Insider(content behind paywall), Google Stadia had only around 750,000 monthly active users in 2020, reportedly missing Google’s target of 1 million monthly active users. This is truly poor when you compare it against rivals such as Xbox Live (Statista) and PlayStation Network (Statista), whose monthly active users had hit or surpassed the 100 million mark by that time.
Google, which is known for ruthlessly killing unsuccessful products, must have given up on catching up any time soon and pulled the plug. Stadia never stood a chance.
Google’s Failure Won’t Stop Others
Google’s failure will not deter others from trying. There’s just too much money to be made from gaming.
The latest big tech entrant is Netflix which has established its own gaming studio in Finland. Will Netflix avoid the gaming graveyard that has claimed many of its big tech counterparts and find lasting success?
Only time will tell.
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