Cognition Dissemination: Stadia Was Always Doomed

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An inevitability came to pass near the end of September: Google announced the death of its Stadia video gaming streaming service. The program in its entirety will be shut down on January 18th, 2023. The service and store now only remain for those who desire to finish playing the games they own or want to continue enjoying them until a set time. The option to purchase games was removed with swiftness, as if the company couldn’t wait to rid itself of this ostensible burden.

Let’s be honest, though: Stadia was never going to kick off in a big way. This was obvious from the moment the concept was revealed, and only became clearer as time went on.

Too many internet connections around the world, including in parts of noted “developed” country the United States of America, cannot come close to sufficiently handling cloud gaming. The service touted itself as a way to stream games with slightly better performance than the updated iterations of last-generation consoles, in 1080p and 60fps and beyond. But doing so requires a beefy connection that can maintain itself in near perpetuity. In countries where little ISP competition exists like the US, getting those kinds of connections can be expensive for those who live in big cities, and those who live outside them are lucky to have them as options. This was outlined as a problem when Stadia was first revealed, and it hasn’t improved. ISPs like Comcast and Verizon have little competition, so why would they move quickly about expanding and improving their services?

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That’s not even getting into issues in other countries, but I’d be here all day if I even started documenting those. The fact is that streaming is difficult to impossible in several parts of the world that would be been integral for Stadia’s success.

Internet connections not being up to literal speed was a mere ostensible problem with the service, and Google stopped expanding their Fiber internet service for a time. It was a more intentional shot in the foot when Google revealed that software prices for individual games were priced on par with those for other platforms, if not higher in some case. Combine this with cloud game ownership not being as secure as digital ownership on other platforms and especially not physical game ownership, and anyone was justified in being concerned about whether their purchases would remain several years into the future. The games themselves weren’t discounted at as frequent a rate compared to other digital PC services, especially Steam.

It would have been difficult for even the biggest company to overcome these issues early on, as clearly demonstrated by Google.

There were smaller signs that the service was doomed for nearly two years now. Google closed their internal development studios back in February 2021 just one week after praising them and before they’d completed any games. Big names who joined the company on their promises, like former Ubisoft developer Jade Raymond, left immediately afterward.

Google claimed they did this after shifting focus to work from third-party developers, but they reduced the number of games they were funding there too. Titles like Supermassive Games’ The Quarry and Squanch Games’ upcoming High on Life (which features heavy involvement from Rick & Morty’s Justin Roiland) were originally planned to be Stadia exclusives, according to a report from Axios. Neither game, funnily enough, was planned for release on Stadia after being announced by other publishers. Further reports provided after Google announced the shutdown stated that Hideo Kojima had a follow-up to Death Stranding planned for the platform, but was cancelled because Google felt a title that focused more heavily on single-player gameplay rather than asynchronous multiplayer wouldn’t sell. Kojima is currently working on a title for Xbox Game Studios, though whether it’s this particular title is unclear.

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High on Life

It never helped that Google is known for killing services. There’s even an entire site dedicated to chronicling the graveyard, with Stadia being added to it quickly after the news was announced. Heck, three more services are listed to be killed after it. When a company is this known for killing services, it’s tough to get people to invest in a new service when they justifiably believe it could cease within a few years. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and Google has only themselves to blame.

The only surprising development here is how Google is actually refunding all Stadia hardware, games, and additional content purchased through the Google Store. Stadia Pro subscriptions will be the only feature not refunded, but all the games players redeemed while subscribed will be accessible until the shutdown happens in mid-January. Refunding nearly everything is what could save Google’s reputation here, a semi-goodwill gesture to get people to buy into their next money-costing venture. But note the emphasis on “could” there.

Google is hardly the only company engaged in cloud gaming, with other examples like Amazon Luna and Microsoft’s XCloud. I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon’s effort meets the same fate, but Luna isn’t as important to them as Stadia was to Google. Microsoft has the right idea here, by making their cloud service a side project compared to their “traditional” Xbox physical and digital game service and the Xbox Game Pass subscription service.

In any case: Google is still on their long, valiant quest to see how many services they can launch and unceremoniously kill before it really bites them in the ass. It will be fun to watch, at least, if you’re not an employee or investor.

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6 Comments
  1. indigowingspan
    • chrono7828
  2. rmcclosk
    • chrono7828
  3. rmcclosk
    • chrono7828

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