Google Stadia Is Dead, Long Live Google Stadia

howtogeek.com:

Google’s game streaming service, Stadia, is a technically-impressive platform that has been plagued with countless management and publishing issues. Now that Google has shifted its business to serving other game platforms, and ending big-budget ports, the Stadia we know is just about dead.

Google Stadia has been the butt of jokes ever since its introduction in 2019, most of which were some variation of “can’t wait for Google to shut it down.” It’s true that Google has a long history of shutting down applications and services after just a few years, even some that had a decent level of popularity (RIP Google Reader). However, few of Google’s paid products and services are ever shut down, which granted some credibility to the idea that Stadia would stick around for a while.

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Stadia had another significant roadblock for public perception: pricing. Stadia was primarily built around purchasing each game individually, with the option to subscribe to Stadia Pro, which increases the maximum streaming resolution and includes several games. Google didn’t seem to do a great job of communicating that you didn’t need the subscription to play games after you bought them, which wasn’t a great start for the platform.

There was also plenty of discourse in the gaming community about “owning” games on Stadia. Many were quick to point out that purchasing a game that you don’t fully own and can’t download is silly, and whenever Stadia would shut down, you would presumably lose access to your entire game collection. Even though that is a valid point on a surface level, the same can be said for Steam, Epic Games Store, and just about every other modern games platform. You don’t “own” a game on Steam any more than you “own” a Stadia