As had been announced since September last year, Google has finally closed the doors of its video game streaming server. The reasons for this decision have already been discussed and mentioned in another article.
But today we will talk about how this closure took place, and what it implied for those who used it.
When happened this?
Last Wednesday, January 18, since Google Stadia, did not achieve the results expected by the company, it closed definitively. Although it is a smart decision by the company, since it did not meet expectations, this is shocking news for those who had any of the games, controllers, or downloadable content on the platform, but fortunately Google has offered the option to its users to return the money for some purchases or allow them to download their information and saved games. Also, Google previously estimating those refunds would be completed by mid-January.
How Google has marked the closure?
The way, that Google decided has marked the closure by releasing one final Stadia game, called Worm Game, which the developers used to test the service before its public release.
And even though it is considered a sad moment, Google decides to give another last gift, announcing to its users that they are working to make Stadia controllers Bluetooth capable, which would allow them to be used on PC wirelessly to play any game, even after Stadia’s closure.
Are there people affected by the closure?
We could say that those who were really affected were the users and gamers who not only gave this platform a chance, but also found it useful and entertaining. So much so that many of them reacted with sadness, and have pointed out that some games developed exclusively to be played on Stadia could be lost forever once the service closes.
As an example of this, Splash Damage, a London-based developer that made multiplayer game Outcasters, said last year it had no plans to bring the game elsewhere.
On the other hand, we also have the example of Q-Games founder and chief executive Dylan Cuthbert told BBC News his team had spent two years developing Stadia exclusive PixelJunk Raiders, and he wanted to make sure it was not “gone forever”.
“We’re hoping to talk to publishers who can help us get it on to a PC or even PS5 [PlayStation 5] or other platforms. The IP is ours, so we’re trying to find a way to do that.”
Hey fan, keep calm! Because, Cuthbert also said that he would like to rework the game a little bit. Since, at the time when they launched it, they did have to rush it a bit at the end.
What happened to users’ game saves?
Well, if you are curious to know whether it was possible to save or have the games of the Google Stadia platform games outside of it, here we tell you some tools or solutions that were used.
Some games like Red Dead Online, Destiny 2 or The Elder Scrolls Online had with the possibility to carry out a transfer of saved data to another platform, since many of these games can also be played on PC and other consoles.
At least they could save their saved data and move it to another platform, in many cases, at no cost, since they did not have to buy the game again. Although it seems to only allow switching to PC, so they were unable to move the games to the PlayStation account.
On the one hand, they downloaded the game information using Google Takeout, Google’s tool for exporting data from their servers, and which has a section especially dedicated to Stadia.
However, for this it was necessary to correctly synchronize the games, having to resort to the cloud synchronization tools that some games have, such as:
- Destiny 2.
- Hitman.
- Red Dead Online.
- Borderlands 3.
- The Elder Scrolls Online.
- Assassin’s Creed and other Ubisoft games.
Hey! It should still be noted that these are by no means all the games that had been available on Google Stadia, but rather the lucky ones that have the option to move the game progress to another platform.