It's claws cut!
There are few takes that the entire Internet makes which turn out be more crushingly accurate, then the one that Stadia would be killed off by Google for lack of interest before it even managed to work half of it's proposed feature slate. I suppose when you work for one of the most obvious super conglomerate waste machines in the modern world, you really do reap exactly what it is that you sow. No single person, for a single second, truly believed that Google Stadia would last the kicks and blows of an entire video game generational cycle, even as this tech was designed to usurp that very cycle in it's lifetime. Some may call it ahead of it's time, but only if they foresee a future for the Industry in which consumer standards slide so much they'll accept a god-awful financial deal just to play some slightly higher fidelity games lacking any and all personal mod support. No, a streaming future will certainly look different to the glimpse that Stadia presented to us; else it will also be not long for this world as they're undercut by everyone with an ounce of acumen under them.
But there's no point kicking Stadia on it's way to the funeral. Not because I'm some particularly moralistic or well-adjusted individual who doesn't believe in the brutality of it, but because I can't see the purpose in kicking someone who won't feel it. No, this blog is about the other side of that equation; the blows that Stadia is trying to wring out in it's dying gasps of breath, eager to hurt anyone close to them in a weak mask of basic corporate diligence. But, to their slight credit, the team did prepare the absolute utmost barest of the bare, minimum in order to feed the fans something during their passing. They did exactly what they needed to in order to not get wrapped up in a class action lawsuit or two if they scrubbed their hands completely of the tech and it's user base. And I suppose that, compunctions aside, that's worth at the very least a golf clap.
<Golf Clap.>
Now let's see where they're lacking. So the Stadia team were kind enough to actually fish out for refunds when the Stadia ship went down, which many have lauded but honestly if they didn't do this gesture, it would have been like the entire team laying out their own heads to be guillotined in the court of public opinion. They're already clowns, no need to turn themselves into shoddy thieves on top of all that. Accepting extortionate pricing for antiquated games under the pretence of being the 'endgoal of gaming that everyone is going to flock too', pretty much sealed their fate in that regard. They were never going to get to keep that money. But at least the people who did sign up were allowed to play some games for two years essentially free, right? Pretty much, but of course Google has to try and get in a little jab here so as to not be seen as fully beaten.
Because you see, as a Google product, buying Stadia games constituted to the interconnected Google ecosystem through one of those synergistic systems designed to keep consumers locked into the Google family of services: (kind of like a 'metaverse' without all the pointless faff.) in this instance; Play Points. The play store rewards users with points whenever they buy a Google product, which can then be used to redeem stuff on the play store. Books, movies, mobile games, whatever you want. And because all Stadia games were ludicrously full priced; that was a lot of Play point being dumped into people's accounts to the point where I imagine some struggled to find enough useless Play apps to spend it all on! (Actually, we're talking about Stadia adopters here; they probably sunk it all into some crappy Candy Crush derivative, didn't they?) Whatever the case, the death of Stadia was when those chickens came back to roost, because lo-and-behold; those refunds did not take into account those Play points, and those who spent theirs will now find their account several hundred points in the red. Basically meaning that if you ever want to buy anything on the Play store ever again, you need to re-spend that money you just got refunded on Google. Now ain't that cute and petty?
And then there's the save transferring that Google randomly straddled developers with. Taking no provisions to care about what became of player's games the moment that Stadia went bust, video game developers had to go out of there way to develop save game transfer systems in order to accommodate player save games on titles that lacked it already. Which is a method of normalising cross-platform integration I suppose, but forcing the onus onto others never really leaves a good taste in the mouth. But I guess all that nitty gritty stuff is beyond Stadia's control. They never even bothered to reach out to partners to try and work out a smooth transition; they just folded and left it for others to pick up their discarded playthings once known as 'customers'. Very cynical.
Also, although this is a matter we've mentioned before, I just want to harp on how insanely out of the blue this shutdown was. We know they had just put out a UI update, and there were designers working on features the day that the full shutdown was announced, but I cannot understate how utterly unprofessional it was from a multibillion dollar company not to alert it's partners. They were all left totally in the blue and with nothing to show for their loyalty to Stadia. Some indie developers didn't have the plans for non-stadia versions of their games on hand, but had to scramble in order to not have their revenue source cut off. Of course, now their games have entered the supremely more competitive and packed Steam ecosystem wherein their talents will most definitely be drowned out in a sea of indie games releasing everyday.
Ontop of all of that, there is the inevitably oncoming vapourware. At least one indie developer has confirmed they literally can't create a non-Stadia version of their game. However it worked, that infrastructure was designed to interact with Stadia's cloud-gaming ecosystem in a way lacking an alternative. That means Stadia literally just killed a game, outright and coldly. They banished it to the shadow realm as punishment for the sheer hubris anyone would have in trusting them. And I know plenty of developers were entering the partnership knowing how short lived it was likely to be. They just wanted to secure their bag and exit out the back window before the house burnt down, but that doesn't make it any less screwed up that this is how Google handled it's recently disenfranchised ex-partners. Pull the rug out from under them, leave them to get their things in order.
Google Stadia was a mistake by many regards. An idiot who has failed upwards his entire career being given too much money to cater to a market he very clearly didn't understand. But as with any cult, there are people who slipped under the allure of the exclusivity of it all. Mistook the robust infrastructure for a secure future, and became the newest headstones lining the Google graveyards. That seems to be a trend recently, doesn't it? Legacy tech companies trying their hands at revising their image or seeking a new market, only to stumble spectacularly. First Facebook, then Google and now Twitter. If only there weren't so many livelihoods getting ruined inbetween all of this, it would be downright hilarious to watch all these titans set fire to themselves. At least if the world remains this incompetent, Megacorps really will never become a thing.
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