Google’s latest gaming project has ended in failure. The company announced yesterday that its Stadia cloud gaming platform, which lets you stream games like you would a Netflix TV show to various screens and devices, will shut down in January 2023, and the company will refund every hardware and software purchase on the platform. For many industry watchers, it was the inevitable and unfortunate conclusion to arguably Google’s riskiest gaming gamble.

Stadia arrived too early and too half-baked. Although companies have been trying to crack game streaming for years, no company arrived on the scene with as much ambition as Google back in 2019.

• The company talked a big game and promised scores of impressive features, but the service eventually launched later that year in what felt like a half-finished state.
• While other cloud gaming platforms used a variety of business models that allowed consumers to either play games they already owned or those made available via monthly subscription, Stadia’s model asked users to pay full cost for software that worked only on its platform.
• To make matters worse, Stadia didn’t launch with many of the most attractive elements, including a promised free tier (which launched later) and exclusive first-party games that took advantage of the cloud (those never launched).

The writing was on the wall for quite some time. Google had a rough 2020 as it tried to attract new users to Stadia on the promise of exclusive games, big first-party releases like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, and an expanding feature set that would fulfill those lofty promises made a year prior.

• But by February 2021, the situation had grown dire. Without much warning, Google shut down its internal game development division, which included two studios employing around 150 developers. The division had yet to even ship a single game.
• High-profile hires, like Assassin’s Creed producer Jade Raymond, left the company to start new ventures, and much of the game industry talent began to flood out of Stadia, all while Google maintained that the service was alive and well.
• Throughout the remainder of 2021 and into 2022, Google made very little mention of Stadia, though the division did launch in new markets, kept adding games, and chipped away at its feature wishlist.

Rumors began to circulate back in July that Google was planning to wind Stadia down. This followed a damning Business Insider report in February 2022 that said Google had “deprioritized” the consumer side of the business in favor of trying to salvage its streaming tech as an enterprise business.

To squash the bad press, the Stadia Twitter account wrote on July 29, “Stadia is not shutting down. Rest assured we're always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro.” Now, two months later, the inevitable has in fact happened. It was a valiant effort, but ultimately another cloud gaming casualty. Here’s hoping Microsoft, Nvidia, and others fare better.

— Nick Statt