Stadia Game Developers Claim They Learned about the Service's Closure From Press

On September 29, Google announced that it was shutting down its cloud gaming service, Google Stadia. According to Stadia's VP and General Manager Phil Harrison, this decision was driven by the fact that in two and a half years of the service's existence, it didn't manage to gain the required user base.

Following Google's announcement, several developers who had created games for Stadia complained that the company hadn't informed them about this decision in advance. According to them, they learned about the news the way everyone else did – through the message shared in a blog post on Google's The Keyword website.

As indie developer Simon Roth, the creator of sci-fi strategy simulation Maia, wrote, no one who had worked on Stadia games had "heard anything more than the press did." The developer also noted that it's not only an issue with Google – according to him, "it's always like this" in the game industry – every time something like this happens no one bothers to notify the developers in advance.

Another developer, Tom Vian, the creator of Tangle Tower, the 2019 game due on Stadia in early October, also shared that he learned about the closure from the press, not from Google itself. Rebecca Heineman who was working on an indie game whose release on Stadia was planned for November 1 also noted that she learned the news from the blog post saying that now the team will have to look for other platforms to launch their game.

Stadia engineers apparently were told about the service's closure a little earlier than the developers – but still, just a few hours before the announcement. That's according to what seems to be an internal letter sent by Harrison to Stadia team members.

In its announcement, Google said it will refund all Stadia-related purchases, however, the company has not yet clarified whether there will be any compensation for developers who created games for the service. 

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