Google has officially revealed when its Stadia game streaming service will be going down for good. In case you missed it, back in September 2022, Google revealed that it would finally be pulling the plug on Stadia in the early part of 2023. And while this news wasn’t met with much shock considering that Stadia never really took off in the way that Google expected, its shutdown is still something that will impact a fair number of people when it comes about.
In a message given to The Verge, Google confirmed that Stadia will officially be going offline in a little under a week on January 18th. The service will specifically be shutting down on this date at 11:59pm PT. After this time, Stadia will be completely unusable, which means that any games you may have purchased through the service will become inaccessible. And while this might sound completely unfair to those who have spent money through the service, Google has already announced that it’s working on making good with customers.
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As part of Stadia’s previous shutdown announcement, Google confirmed that it would be issuing refunds to anyone who ever purchased a game through Stadia. These refunds also extend to hardware purchases that Stadia users might have made through Google’s own store. As a whole, Google began pushing out these refunds late in 2022 and it’s continuing to do so in the lead-up to Stadia going offline. So if you’re still waiting to get a refund of your own, keep an eye on your inbox in the coming days.
Moving forward, it seems unlikely that Google will look to dive into the gaming space in this same way again. Although massive companies like Amazon, Google, Netflix, and others have looked to entrench themselves in video games more heavily in recent years, the failure of Stadia will likely keep Google away from this market for quite some time. And even if Google does look to give gaming another shot, it seems clear that Stadia will never end up returning in any capacity.
Did you ever use Stadia for yourself when it was still live? And if so, are you going to give the service one last spin before it goes offline next week? Let me know down in the comments or reach out to me on social media at @MooreMan12.
