Google has announced plans to shut down its Stadia gaming service.

In a blog post yesterday, Stadia vice president Phil Harrison revealed the tech giant plans to scrap the cloud gaming service, which has had a chequered experience since its launch in 2019.

Speculation over Stadia’s pending demise first circulated last year after the volume of titles released on the platform began slowing down rapidly.

Explaining the decision to scrap Google Stadia, Harrison said: “While Stadia’s approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service.”

So what does this mean for current players? Here are five things you need to know.

When will Google Stadia shut down?

Players will still be able to access Google Stadia until the 18th of January 2023, Harrison confirmed in his blog post.

“Players will continue to have access to their games library and play through January 18, 2023 so they can complete final play sessions,” he said.

Will Google Stadia games still work during this period?

Google said it “anticipates that there will be some gameplay issues” during the wind-down period for Stadia services.

In particular, players may encounter issues on “any games requiring commerce” – so in-game purchases.

“The majority of games should continue to work normally,” Google confirmed in its Stadia FAQ section.

Can I transfer Stadia game saves to another platform?

It might be possible for players to take their game progress to another platform. However, Google said this would depend on whether those titles support cross-progression play on other platforms.

“For the majority of games, that won’t be possible,” the firm said.

Will I get a refund?

As part of the winddown, Google plans to refund all Stadia hardware purchased through the Google Store. At this stage, users won’t be required to return any hardware.

The tech giant also plans to refund all game and add-on content purchases made via the Stadia store. According to Google’s FAQs, refunds for Google Pro subscriptions won’t be offered to players.

“We will not be refunding Stadia Pro subscriptions,” Google said. “Players who held an active Stadia Pro subscription as of September 29, 2022 will not be charged for access to their Pro library or other subscription entitlements during the shut-down period.”

Google expects to have “the majority” of refunds completed by mid-January 2023.

What comes next for Google gaming?

While Google’s foray into cloud gaming might not have been a success, there are positives to take from this experience, Harrison noted in his blog post.

The underlying technology powering Stadia has been “proven at scale and transcends gaming,” he said. And long-term, Harrison suggested that the Stadia experiment will bear fruit for Google in other areas of the business.

He explained: “We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts – as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming ahead.”

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