Stadia
was a cloud gaming platform from Google. As a cloud gaming service, rather than consumers having bespoke hardware that's needed to run the games, titles played on Stadia were processed and rendered on Google's servers; all the player required on their end was an Internet connection and a device that supported the Google Chrome browser or ran ChromeOS. Any USB controller worked with Stadia, though there did exist a dedicated Stadia controller that would connect directly to the data center where the game was running, thus helping to reduce input latency.
After a closed beta in 2018, Stadia publicly launched on November 19, 2019 in 14 countries.note The service launched with two tiers: the free tier (initially called "Stadia Base") that limited streaming to 1080p resolutions, and a $10USD monthly subscription "Stadia Pro" tier that allowed streaming rates up to 4K resolution, in addition to monthly free games and regular discounts. Starting in April 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Google would start giving new users a free two months of access to Stadia Pro features, which was later reduced to one month that June.note
Stadia was quickly met with skepticism by the public on several fronts. For one, Google's history of abandoning products and services that weren't instantly successful raised questions about the platform's long-term prospects, as entering the video game industry as a platform holder had long proven to demand a large amount of investment; the lack of availability in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East did not help with these perceptions. And while the server-side technology required to make cloud gaming work had vastly improved since the days of OnLive in the early 2010s, the high internet speed required of users on the client-side was not yet widely available in a number of major markets, including the United States, prompting questions about the platform's actual viability. Finally, the past decade had conditioned consumers to expect any streaming service to only ask for a subscription fee, meaning having to buy each game piecemeal, and at full price, was not appreciated. Poor marketing worsened this, as many people thought the Stadia Pro subscription was mandatory to access the service, and were left unaware of the presence of free-to-play titles on the service.
Stadia notably suffered from a crippling lack of exclusive titles: a handful of games were Stadia-only for a limited time, only five games were ever developed exclusively for the platform, with games shown off in commercials being multiplatform releases such as Cyberpunk 2077, meaning the platform never had a true Killer App to help drive adoption. While Google would establish the Stadia Games and Entertainment division in 2019, consisting of two Montreal studios (a new one headed by Jade Raymond (Assassin's Creed) and the newly acquired Typhoon Studios) and a Los Angeles studio (headed by Shannon Studstill, former head of SIE Santa Monica Studio), they would all be shut down in February 2021 in favor of Google focusing all its efforts on securing third-party content for the platform, leaving the nascent branch unable to even announce, much less release, anything before its demise.note This put even more doubt on Stadia's viability and Google's general ambitions in the gaming market.
On September 29th, 2022, following months of substantial rumors that the service would be abandoned, the final nail in Stadia's coffin was hammered into place, as Google officially announced the shutdown of Stadia. The store was shut down immediately following this announcement, and the service itself went offline on January 18, 2023, with Google offering refunds for all Stadia-related hardware and software purchases in the interim. Several developers and publishers, notably IO Interactive, Ubisoft, and Rockstar Games, pledged to allow for saves to be transferred from Stadia to their respective games before Stadia shut down, and Ubisoft went even further to allow for their games to be kept on their Ubisoft Launcher. Additionally, a downloadable update released on the service’s second-to-last day added Bluetooth connectivity to the Stadia controller, allowing it to be used with other platforms. And as a final silver lining, three of the five developers managed to buy the rights to their Stadia exclusive titles back and port them to other platforms in the following years, though this still leaves two titles as lost media.
In spite of all this, Google has continued pursuing the cloud gaming marketplace, albeit it in a less direct manner. Almost two weeks after the announcement that Stadia would shut down, Google began a marketing campaign advertising a new line of gaming-focused Chromebooks which came preinstalled with GeForce Now, a cloud gaming service which formerly competed with Stadia. After this campaign ended, Google would continue to advertise these Chromebooks as supporting three of their major competitors: the aforementioned GeForce Now, Amazon Luna, and Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Games exclusive to Stadia:
- GYLT (2019)note
- Outcasters (2020)note
- Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle (2020)note
- Hello Engineer (2021)note
- PixelJunk Raiders (2021)note
- Worm Game (2023)note
