Google Stadia, Google’s cloud gaming platform, is shutting its servers down on Jan. 18, 2023, the search engine giant announced in a statement, as the service failed to catch on like Google hoped it would. The news comes a few months after reports emerged that said Google was making Stadia less of a priority in 2022.
Users will lose access to their game libraries, but Google said the company will issue refunds for games, game add-ons, and Stadia hardware purchased through Google.
“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,” Phil Harrison, Google’s vice president and general manager, said in the statement. “We’re grateful to the dedicated Stadia players that have been with us from the start.”
Stadia games may disappear, but the technology and workers that made Stadia possible will find new life elsewhere in the company. Harrison said Google will repurpose Stadia technology for areas such as Google AR and YouTube, and Stadia’s engineers and other workers will be moved to other parts of the business.
Google’s foray into gaming might not end with Stadia either. Harrison closed the statement by saying Google remains committed to gaming and will continue investing in its gaming infrastructure to help development partners and creators.
Stadia may be going away, but Amazon Luna, Amazon’s game streaming platform, and Xbox Cloud Gaming are still working to make cloud gaming a viable option in the industry, while tech companies such as Logitech are releasing their own cloud gaming consoles to compete with the likes of Nintendo Switch.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF