Yesterday (September 29) Google announced it would be “winding down” its cloud-based gaming service Stadia, but several developers have now revealed they were not told about the closure in advance – despite having games due out on the service.
Taking to Twitter, No More Robots Mike Rose shared the news by writing: “Oh my god. 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.”
“To all the people who kept begging us “please bring your games to Stadia” — this is why we didn’t haha,” he continued. “Hours later and I still have no email from Stadia, and no clarity on what’s happening with our games, deals, anything. Really would have been nice if they’d told partners, or even got in contact with us by now?”
Hours later and I still have no email from Stadia, and no clarity on what’s happening with our games, deals, anything
Really would have been nice if they’d told partners, or even got in contact with us by now?
— Mike Rose (@RaveofRavendale) September 29, 2022
It was a similar story for SFB Games co-founder Tom Vian, who wrote: “Tangle Tower was due to launch on Stadia in two days time, and this article was the first I heard about it shutting down.”
“We have a title coming out November 1. Now we hear about this,” replied fellow dev Rebecca Heineman. “At least Google reached out to us and are working to lessen the pain due to our title for Stadia is cancelled. At least it will be on other platforms, but still. Ouch,” she continued.
“That’s really bad news and also a big surprise for us,” wrote studio Clockwork Origins. “Now we wasted a lot of time porting and developing for Stadia, money we never get back.”
That's really bad news and also a big surprise for us. Now we wasted a lot of time porting and developing for Stadia, money we never get back (for EW1, not sure what happens with Tri6). https://t.co/Oabv2hHlqV
— Clockwork Origins (@CWO_Games) September 29, 2022
Google Stadia originally launched in November 2019 but in recent months, there have been rumours of it closing, fuelled by Google closing its internal Stadia development studio in February.
At the end of July, Google denied all those rumours, saying: “Stadia is not shutting down. Rest assured we’re always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro.”
Announcing the closure of Stadia yesterday (September 30) Google confirmed that all Stadia hardware purchased through the Google store and all games and add-ons bought via the Stadia store will be refunded.
“Players will continue to have access to their games library and play through January 18, 2023 so they can complete final play sessions. We expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023,” the announcement continued.
In other news, Jetpack Interactive, the studio behind this year’s PC port of God Of War (2018), has confirmed it is working with Sony on a live services title.
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