Three years after launching Stadia, Google shuts down the game-streaming service

As a result of Stadia's failure to gain traction with players almost three years after its launch, Google has announced that it will suspend its cloud gaming service, Stadia.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google created stadia to take on the video game console giants with a platform of its own. Through Stadia, the company allowed users to play games on devices such as Android phones and Chromecast apps for TV, by funnelling data directly from Google’s server clusters. Its subscription cost $10 a month.

“While Stadia approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected,” said Phil Harrison, Stadia's vice president and general manager.

"So we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service," he added.

Players will be able to access their games library and play through Jan. 18. Google will refund Stadia hardware purchases, games and add-on content made through the Google Store, Harrison said.

Google invested generously in Stadia in an effort to reach well beyond the audience of traditional gamers or those who couldn’t afford a pricey Xbox or PlayStation console, as per a Bloomberg report.

Further, Stadia debuted in November 2019 with popular third-party franchises including Destiny 2 and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. But Google’s ultimate goal was to pack Stadia with original content and the company hired hundreds of game developers from Montreal and Los Angeles. They didn’t have long to ramp up before Google shuttered its in-house game development in early 2021.