Google Stadia, Google's cloud gaming service, is officially shutting down, and the company will issue refunds to the platform's users.

Google Stadia launched in 2019 and allowed users to play games, including major titles like Resident Evil Village, on various devices, such as laptops, desktops, tablets or compatible phones. Phil Harrison, the Vice President and General Manager of Stadia, released the Stadia shutdown details on Google's official blog. According to Harrison, the main reason Google is abandoning Stadia is that the service 'hasn't gained the traction with users' that was initially expected. In his statement, Harrison also promised that Google would refund Stadia users for all hardware purchases made through the Google store and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia Store. Users will have access to their game libraries through Jan. 18, 2023, and Google expects that most Stadia refunds will be completed by mid-January 2023. Despite Stadia's shutdown, Harrison also stated that several Stadia employees would remain at Google.

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"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. Many of the Stadia team members will be carrying this work forward in other parts of the company," he said. "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..."

Google Stadia had a rather tumultuous lifecycle. While the service saw spikes and falls in popularity over the past few years, it also prompted complaints about an alleged lack of promised features, such as the ability to stream and play certain games in 4K resolution. These factors led to a class-action lawsuit against Google Stadia in 2021. That same year, Google announced that it would no longer create exclusive content for Stadia and instead shifted its focus to third-party development.

This decision, according to Harrison, was designed to 'help game developers and publishers take advantage of our platform technology and deliver games directly to their players.' In Google's recent blog post about Stadia's shutdown, Harrison spoke positively about Stadia's technological foundation and stated that Google would utilize it in future projects.

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"The underlying technology platform that powers Stadia has been proven at a scale that transcends gaming. We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts--as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we will see the future of gaming headed. We remain deeply committed to gaming, and we will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators."

Google also clarified that any pre-orders made via Stadia would be canceled. Users who have already been charged for a pre-order will have their payment refunded.

Source: Google's Official Blog