What is Google going to do now that Stadia is over?

In September Google announced that its cloud gaming service Stadia would cease operations. Today we explore why Stadia came to an end and what Google is most likely to do next in the gaming industry.

Why is Stadia shutting down?

The main reason that Stadia is closing is traffic. They underlined that one of the main reasons for ending the Stadia service is that it wasn't getting the traffic that they predicted. Google lost heavily to companies such as Microsoft who were already getting the main traffic with their home gaming consoles at the time of Stadia's release. When Microsoft did eventually release a cloud-gaming-based service the audience who were already familiar with the Xbox games library and style of play found Xbox Cloud Gaming to be more reliable, resulting in poor turnover revenues for Stadia.

It also didn't help that you couldn't play Stadia straight away. The service was based on ordering a controller and having it shipped to you and as a result, people opted to play on mobile or order a more reliable console. Stadia's game library was yet another headache for the company. Many game companies including Mojang are owned by Google's competitors and as a result, Stadia wasn't able to obtain rights to certain important titles.

What's next for Google Gaming?

Google has assured all users of Stadia that full refunds will be given to any user who has purchased from the service. After announcing that Stadia would be coming to an end, Google stated that all employees working in the Stadia department would be moved throughout the company and that some parts of the technology would be implemented into Google Play and YouTube. I inferred from this that we may see new features reminiscent of Stadia coming to Google Play and Google Play Games.

For now, we can't say for certain about the future of Google's gaming plan but we can be sure that they've got something in mind.

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Written by Tom Conmy

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