Stadia

While it's a great (and necessary) move that Google has chosen to refund all players hardware and software purchases through Google Stadia ahead of the ...

Google Stadia Social Media Manager may not have been privy to this information at the time, but it reflects a larger pattern of Google maintaining they had the utmost faith in Google Stadia and despite scaling it back and shuttering first party developments, always maintained it would soldier on. Google has said it wants to keep utilizing Stadia streaming tech in other ways, but for now, it feels a bit chaotic. Even they don’t seem to have been given a heads up about this, with only this to tell Axios about their Stadia games, "We'll have more specifics to share about our games on Stadia at a later date." Bungie, maker of Destiny, recently bought by Sony, has been using Stadia to help with its widespread work-from-home development on the game, and while the Stadia shutdown announcement seems to indicate they may still work with partners on uses of the tech, it’s unclear when that may take shape, and what immediate plans may have to shift because of the pending shutdown. That’s a lot of time and effort and money that could have been saved had they known this was coming. And there’s the playerbase itself, where 5,000 Destiny players play the game on Stadia daily, which was once a flagship featured game for the service.

Few thought Google's troubled streaming service, Stadia, might ever become a dominant player in the gaming industry, but almost no one expected it to shut ...

[As of yesterday](https://twitter.com/DestinyBulletn/status/1575545958158725121), there were more concurrent Destiny players on Stadia than Halo Infinite players on Steam. “I don’t want to stay under the same leadership,” they said. “We just learned about Stadia shutting down and have begun conversations about next steps for our players,” Bungie [posted](https://twitter.com/DestinyBulletn/status/1575558847250411521) on its support forum yesterday. [one of Stadia’s first big gets](https://kotaku.com/sources-destiny-2-is-coming-to-google-stadia-getting-1835270126), with Bungie making a big push to bring streaming players into the fold of its sprawling space MMO. “It’s funny, most of the world views Stadia as that gimmick that nobody bothered with,” Both games were a key selling point for Stadia, and [Bloomberg previously reported](https://kotaku.com/report-stadia-blew-millions-on-red-dead-redemption-2-a-1846367180) that Google shelled out tens of millions to secure those and other big blockbusters, the purchases of which it will now be refunding to all players. “We knew Stadia was on the chopping board but I guess we still had hopes that it was so much investment that it was cheaper to keep it going, even with no new games, than to kill it,” one current employee told Kotaku. The important update turned out to be that Google was killing Stadia by the beginning of next year, according to two current employees who wish to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press about company business. [shared a screenshot on Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/xrcea4/thanks_phil_harrison_thats_3_failed_launches_for/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) of a meeting invite from Harrison. “We were also due to launch Soccer Story on Stadia in November, and that has money attached to it that we’re meant to receive. “We just had communication with [our partner manager] earlier in the week going through some next steps, so there was no indication that anything was changing.” Studios have partner managers at Stadia to help with the process of porting games, getting them certified, and any other issues that may come up during the collaboration.

There's Bluetooth inside the Stadia controller, but it's only used when you're setting up Stadia, either with a TV, a computer with the Chrome browser, or a ...

The company's pledge to create " [A circular Google](https://sustainability.google/commitments/circular-economy/#a-circular-google)" states that the company believes that by "incorporating circularity into our designs from inception, things created today can become the resources of tomorrow and enable reuse, repair, and recovery." At least one Github project reportedly [improves the Stadia controller's Windows function](https://github.com/RexSonic/StadiEm/tree/0b01e04a2b17fbc60606c70a8712d3d63cddecc4) (as an Xbox controller). One intrepid Stadia fan, Parth Shah, had already cobbled together a " [Stadia Wireless](https://github.com/helloparthshah/StadiaWireless/tree/c7f9d667611795b9a3305e60a949872a5d9b5ad0)" Python hack to get the Stadia controller working "wirelessly": connected to a phone, then that phone connecting to a Windows PC over Wi-Fi, emulating a standard Xbox controller. The reuse and recovery would be much appreciated by customers. Valve, makers of the Steam PC gaming store and assorted hardware connected to it, But Valve made Steam Controllers viable for lots of other platforms and prevented them from ending up in, at best, e-waste sorting facilities. Some have suggested that the full refunds give Google more leeway to ignore the limited function of their devices post-shutdown. Hopefully [G]oogle does something about it." They'd like to see Google unlock Bluetooth to make their favorite something more than a USB-only controller and avoid a lot of plastic and circuit board trash. "They created trash and they at least owe it to me to do their best within reason to prevent millions of otherwise perfectly good controllers from filling landfills," another wrote. Google is refunding players the cost of all their hardware and game purchases. Bluetooth Classic may be implemented at a later date."

Google's timing and strategy were wrong, but the tech is here to stay. Rivals like PlayStation Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming show that streaming can complement ...

It’s a perfect match; it is surely a no-brainer that cloud gaming should be sold as a subscription service, and conveniently, Microsoft already had one, and a library of games to match. (For Sony, PlayStation Now is now positioned similarly as part of a PlayStation Plus subscription, and represents a vital gateway to a whole generation of hard-to-emulate PS3 games.) It is not a paradigm shift, it’s just an added boon — but it worms its way into our lives. Consumers, unprepared for the very concept of cloud gaming and unclear on how it complemented the gaming hardware they already owned, simply shrugged and looked the other way. In this context, cloud gaming is presented as a useful, alternative way to enjoy your games, whether it’s playing a perennial favorite like Forza Horizon on an iPad while the TV is in use or using it to immediately sample a new release before committing to a download. This has been the ace in the hole of Stadia’s closest (though by no means only) competitor, Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming. It might also have allowed it to correct another massive oversight, which was the way it put the platform before the software. In fact, it had only just begun the task of assembling studios to build exclusive games, which would obviously be years away. So, Google tried to catch the cloud gaming wave while it was still early. Nothing, as it turned out; Google has at least had the good grace Secondly, cloud gaming requires a bigger leap of faith from the gaming audience than many marketers seem to realize. Cloud gaming still has many hurdles to overcome: technical, logistical, in terms of marketing and public perception. [Google shuttering its Stadia game-streaming service](https://www.polygon.com/23378721/google-stadia-shutting-down) is: That must be it for cloud gaming, right?

Ubisoft games that were purchased on Google Stadia will be eligible for transfer so that they can be played on a PC.

Lastly, members of the Stadia team will be placed in new roles in other parts of the company. Furthermore, it will be refunding all game purchases and pre-orders, including add-on content purchased through the Stadia Store. Despite the shutdown, Google will be offering full refunds on all Stadia hardware purchased through the Google Store.

Developers still hard at work on Google Stadia projects have been expressing their shock and frustration at the cloud g…

We were launching there in November and are now in a much tougher situation." Become a supporter of Eurogamer and you can view the site completely ad-free, as well as gaining exclusive access to articles, podcasts and conversations that will bring you closer to the team, the stories, and the games we all love. "We have a game coming to Stadia in November. Who wants to guess that Google will refuse to pay us the money they owe us for it." I know everybody is having a great time laughing at this but stadia had the best dev revenue of any streaming service, and launching Hyper Gunsport there was going to recoup our dev costs. "Launching Hyper Gunsport there was going to recoup our dev costs.

Several games companies including Ubisoft, Bungie, and others, are working on allowing players to transfer their Google Stadia game saves.

“To all our HITMAN fans on Google Stadia,” they said. The quick response of developers to this unexpected issue sure is commendable, but will likely mean additional development time to implement a solution. “We're grateful to the dedicated Stadia players that have been with us from the start,” said Google. “We just learned about Stadia shutting down and have begun conversations about next steps for our players,” said Destiny 2 developers, Bungie. We'll have more to share regarding specific details as well as the impact for Ubisoft+ subscribers at a later date.— Ubisoft Support (@UbisoftSupport) “We'll have more to share regarding specific details as well as the impact for Ubisoft+ subscribers at a later date.”