Google Stadia shutdown news surprised employees and partners

Google Stadia was a somewhat half-assed attempt at cloud gaming, with a limited, discrete library. With that said, it does have it perks. While GeForce Now gives you more convenient access to your favorite game libraries on Steam or Origin, Stadia gives you instant access to the games in its library. But it’s all going away, which was reportedly a surprise to both their own employees and game developer partners.

Google Stadia shuts down early next year; refunds for everyone

Stadia’s VP and GM, Phil Harrison, published a blog post announcing Stadia’s ride into the horizon. In the post, he admitted Stadia “hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected”. Developers who have been working to publish their titles on the platform were somewhat miffed that all the effort they put in is going to waste. Even Google’s employees working on Stadia had no idea that their project was shutting down, prior to the blog post.

This seems to be somewhat of a trend nowadays, with EVGA reportedly pulling a similar move with their exit from the GPU market. EVGA employees worldwide had no idea, until the media like Gamers Nexus published their videos announcing it. Not a great look for the company, if you ask me.

The silver lining however is that Google will be refunding all purchases of Stadia hardware made through the Google Store, as well as all game and DLC purchased in the Stadia store. For the few gamers who are on the platform, you will continue to have access to your games until 18th January 2023.

Google’s move to wind down Stadia and refund all purchases to their users is truly a great goodwill gesture, recognizing their failings and taking responsibility for it. However the way the news surprised their game developer partners and employees definitely deserves a bit more attention.