The End of Google Stadia

Google Stadia initially promised to revolutionize the gaming industry. Three years later nothing much has changed. But what led Stadia to end after such an exciting announcement?

By: Moksh Paniker

Google Stadia is a cloud-based gaming service that was Google’s first major entry into the gaming industry. Cloud-based gaming services allow users to purchase and play games on any device. Stadia didn’t require high-end specifications to run any of its games. Instead, games were run on Google Servers with the player’s device sending control inputs back to the server. The only technological requirement for Stadia was a fast internet connection. In theory, this is a great idea, allowing for games to be played by everyone without a high price point. However many issues plagued Stadia eventually leading to its cancellation on January 18th, 2023. 

Google Stadia was announced at GDC (Game Design Conference) Keynote conference in March of 2019 and was released half a year later on November 19th, 2019. The announcement had a mixed reaction but created a lot of buzz for the product. Many people saw the promise of cloud-based gaming and how Stadia could influence the gaming industry. Stadia could have revolutionized the way games are developed and made consoles near-obsolete. Additionally, Google also had the resources to build and maintain servers required for cloud-based gaming. Google had left out key information on how Stadia would be monetized, leading to many believing it would be a subscription service. This would make Stadia, in the long run, more expensive than regular consoles.

By Adam Roffel in Google Stadia Premiere Edition Review.

When Stadia was released it offered a 130$ Premiere Edition, which included Chromecast Ultra, a Stadia controller, and a few cables for connection. Stadia also offered Stadia pro, a 10$ a month subscription service enabling users to stream their games in 4k resolution and 5.1 surround sound. Stadia Pro also gave players 1 free game a month and a few discounts on games. In addition to this monetization, users had to buy each game individually with prices ranging from 20$-60$. With only 22 games offered at launch, Stadia seemed like a broken promise. Many of the games were popular titles such as Red Dead Redemption and Assassin’s Creed Oddesy. The games on Stadia’s list weren’t considered casual games, with the need to put in many hours to finish the story with lots more if a player wanted to unlock everything. The expensive monetization practices, a low selection of games, and a lack of anything resembling a casual game conflicted with the message Stadia had initially promised. Google’s Stadia didn’t have a massive market. It essentially targeted those who wanted to play high-end games but didn’t want to pay for a console. This is an incredibly niche market that led to Stadia not getting many users, resulting in Stadia falling short by “hundreds of thousands” of their goal according to unnamed Stadia sources. Many problems also plagued Stadia, particularly quality and connection problems. Users were disappointed that the product failed to live up to the promises made at the GDC announcement. 

Stadia would release a free version of Stadia in the coming months with users still needing to purchase games or buy a Stadia Pro subscription. Google acquired Typhoon industries to help salvage what had been done to Stadia. A new batch of smaller indie games were slowly released, building the Stadia library and attracting new casual customers. Along with this Typhoon industries created exclusive titles for Stadia. Throughout 2021 Stadia would slowly release new features and keep a calm public face. However, there were internal reports that Google would no longer be prioritizing Stadian and that Stadia would no longer be investing in exclusive games. Internal reports around this time stated that Google would no longer prioritize Stadia to focus on other projects. On September 29th, 2022 Google announced that they would shut down Stadia on January 18th, 2023. Google has a history of shutting down projects and Stadia was no different. It failed to hit the expected goals fast enough and didn’t warrant continuing the project.

Stadia was more than just the end of Google’s cloud-based gaming service. I interviewed an ex-Stadia developer and found out about the potential applications Stadia could have had. With games being run side by side on the same server at Google offices they had the ability to share memory between games as they were running. This could create a fundamental shift in how multiplayer games are made and played. However in order to create games using this new technology Google would need to spend 3-5 years researching the potential applications and not make any profit while doing so. This was considered too risky and was not pursued. Theoretically Google could have created multiplayer games with each player playing in a different engine and still be connected to the other players. Google created a way to actually send the in game data from one player to other players within a 1/10th of a second. This could change how multiplayer games are played as you would be able to see what your teammates see in real time even with them being anywhere in the world. While this could theoretically work with any cloud-based gaming Google has the resources capable of researching and developing the applications for this technology.

Google Stadia ended because it couldn’t get enough users. And while it was plagued with multiple issues it paved the way for more cloud-based gaming applications in the future.