Google’s sudden but long-coming decision of shutting down its cloud gaming service Stadia has left many gamers and developers surprised. The tech giant announced it will be shutting down Stadia in early 2023.
This unforeseen decision from Google mainly affected many small indie developers. Unlike big developers, indie developers do not have the resources to develop games for extra platforms. So if they knew Stadia would be shutting down soon, they would’ve used their time and resources to develop games for other platforms.
Lack of communication from Google’s side has led developers into the lurch. In an attempt to cover up leaks, Google decided to not let developers know about this decision ahead of time.
Many gaming studios were working round the clock to develop new games for the Stadia platform. Tangle Tower by SFB Games was set to release in just two days. Tom Vian, founder of SFB Games shared his disappointment on Twitter.
Tangle Tower was due to launch on Stadia in 2 days time, and this article was the first I heard about it shutting down 😢 https://t.co/Pu0UPTQlRn
— Tom Vian (@SFBTom) September 29, 2022
Vian’s SFB Games is not the only studio to become a victim of this blunder. Big game developers like Ubisoft were also kept in the dark about this.
It seems like even Stadia’s internal teams were unaware of Google’s intentions.
W.R.K.S Games Tweeted, “We literally signed the publishing agreement with Stadia last week. So I would assume the internal teams there, who are lovely, are likely finding this out at the same time we are – since I had a super energetic meeting with them last week about us joining.”
Although Google promised to refund Stadia users for their purchases, they did not clear if developers will receive any reimbursement.
Mike Rose, founder of the publisher No More Robots expressed his doubts about Google paying what the developers are owed. He wrote the following in his Tweet.
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
Google clearly didn’t handle this situation perfectly. This whole mess with Stadia has left the company with a tainted image.