Stadia Developers Blindsided By Shutdown
Last week we noted how Google's streaming game service, Stadia, is finally being shut down. Google had initially tried deny the obvious last July when rumors began circulating that the company was preparing its exit strategy. This denial apparently resulted in many of the service's own developers being left in the dark, given they were extremely surprised when the shutdown was actually announced.
Some developers had still been working on game releases for November, and had to find out that the service was being shut down from the news media:
I woke up getting ready for my workday, and I see on our Discord private chat for the company that one of my employees sent a message saying is this true?,' with a link," Rebecca Ann Heineman, CEO of Olde Skuul, said in an interview with The Verge. I follow the link and it's like oh, okay.'" Olde Skuul had planned to launch Luxor Evolved on Stadia Pro on November 1st and was even planning to meet with Google on Friday to discuss the release plan.
Several developers say they were having normal conversations with Google as recently as last week, suggesting that the shutdown wasn't particularly well coordinated. Developers who were working their game for other platforms can recoup costs, but several say they're dealing with fairly significant losses since their games will only have a few month shelf life (Stadia formally shuts down January 18).
Oh my god https://t.co/3lX9ExEfKB
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
- Mike Rose (@RaveofRavendale) September 29, 2022
Meanwhile, gamers are also trying to figure out what to do with their soon-to-be paperweights. The Stadia game controllers are going to be useless junk unless Google opens up the Bluetooth functionality and makes them useable on PC. And some gamers with more than 6,000 hours in some titles are begging Google and developers to extend cross-platform cloud save capability.
While it's great that Google is giving refunds for those who bought the hardware and games through the Google and Google Play stores, that Google couldn't be bothered to inform its own developers that it was shutting the project down says plenty about why the project is shutting down.