Google’s Stadia Gaming Service is Shutting Down

Google announced on Thursday it will be shutting down Stadia, its cloud gaming service, in January 2023. The announcement took many in the gaming community by surprise, but it wasn’t an unexpected one.

“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,” said Phil Harrison, Vice President and General Manager, Stadia, in a blog post.

Google will be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made on the Google Store, along with all game and add-on content purchases through the Stadia store. Stadia’s games library and play access will be available until January 18, 2023, when things will shut down.

“We expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023. We have more details for players on this process on our Help Center,” said Harrison.

“For the Stadia team, building and supporting Stadia from the ground up has been fueled by the same passion for games that our players have,” said Harrison. “Many of the Stadia team members will be carrying this work forward in other parts of the company. We’re so grateful for the groundbreaking work of the team and we look forward to continuing to have an impact across gaming and other industries using the foundational Stadia streaming technology,” he concluded.

Last February, Google shut down its internal studio that made games for Stadia, instead focusing on business partnerships. That move hinted the service wasn’t as popular as it intended to be.

Stadia Pro costs $11.99 CAD per month and offers access to games on multiple devices, with all that is required is the company’s gaming controller. The service launched in Canada back in 2019.

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