Yesterday was a bit of a whirlwind when it came to rumors. Google, the “we have a stake in everything tech related” mogul giant, has not quite conquered the video game sector. With the advent of its streaming cloud library platform Stadia, Google had big plans to compete against console-based clouds. Unfortunately, rain has been mostly over their parade.
Since its launch in 2019, it has been a lackluster endeavor for the most part. At its peak in the end of 2020, there were about 1.3 million users, unofficially, as Google doesn’t’ share its numbers. Since then, those users have declined and today are at around 250,000.
So, when a rumor started floating around yesterday that Stadia might be shutting down by the end of 2022, people weren’t surprised. After all, Google and Netflix are today’s top suppliers of abandonment issues. Google has repeatedly pulled the plug on underperforming projects. In 2020, it killed its cloud project “Isolated Region” and didn’t offer any sort of back up plan. It closed the doors on Google Plus and turned around earlier this year and shut down Currents, which was meant to replace Plus.
The rumor mill comes full circle
The rumor supposedly came from a reputable source- someone who works for Google. According to the poster on Killed By Google’s Twitter account, during a large employee seminar over the past weekend, Google indicated that they were working on an exit plan for shutting down Stadia. “They did not have an exact date the end of service will happen, but they did say by end of summer,” the post said. There were also no plans to transfer service to another platform.
It seemed legit, even stating that those who have subscriptions would receive refunds once the shutdown happened. And reactions were mixed, with most comments expressing no real surprise. In fact, various “prediction sites” said Stadia would shut down by end of 2022, years ago.
However, it appears we may have been bamboozled. When asked to address the rumors directly, the official Twitter account said briefly “Stadia is not shutting down. Rest assured we’re always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro. Let us know if you have other questions.”
There was no mention of the debate on their page. So, currently, it seems Stadia is safe from the chopping block. Of course, as always, time will tell. I, for one, will not get attached to anything Google related. Netflix already has that monopoly of heartbreak.
