‘So much yelling inside me’—the shutdown of Google Stadia stunned indie developers

Byte Source Studios Chairman Nicodim Swider had just set up one last session to squash bugs late into the night. After four long months of transfer work, his small Polish studio was finally ready to submit a semi-finished design that would address all of the “must fix” bugs that Google had identified before the match. jump challenge It can finally be launched on Stadia.

Then, browsing the news on his train ride home, Swider saw what he called a “horror message” on his phone. Stadia is closed. All his transferred works will be for naught.

“I [thought] “There were some rumors…that couldn’t be true,” Swayder said. in a youtube video In the immediate aftermath of the closure. “[Then] I saw [it was an] Official statement about Stadia.

“I started shivering a little,” Swayder recalls. “We put in a lot of effort, a lot of effort to get this done… but everything [is] Gone, all work gone.”

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Swider wasn’t the only Stadia developer who stunned Google Late September announcement The live streaming service will be closed in January. The game makers who spoke to Ars (and some of the subscriber they Surprise on me Social mediaThey all said they had no indication of plans to shutdown Google before the public announcement.

During correspondence [with Google]We’re exchanging emails – nothing has shown us that it could be the end of Stadia, said Soeder.

Olde Sküul . Games CEO Rebecca Heinemann told Ars that her team is still working on the port of Stadia planned for the unofficial color matching game. Luxor developed The morning of the closing announcement of Google. Heinemann said she was preparing for a marketing meeting with her Google representative, scheduled for the next day, when she is an employee. Saw the news on the official Google blog.

Heinemann said she immediately reached out to her Google contact to find out what was going on. “After two hours, I got a response saying, ‘WTF?'” Heinemann recalls. … Well, now I know what the all-encompassing meeting would be like.” “This was a Stadia employee! …so even they didn’t know.”

“People have talked about closing it down from day one… I wish it hadn’t happened before we could stop the game!”

Brandon Sheffield from Necrosoft Games

Necrosoft Games Director Brandon Sheffield said he was discussing Stadia Software Development Kit updates and marketing plans just days before the Stadia shutdown that shut down the studio’s planned port in Hyper Gansport. However, Sheffield added that he had always known that this outcome was a distinct possibility.

“I mean, people have been talking about closing it down from day one,” Sheffield told Ars. “I knew it was a risk because Google is a big company, and if they don’t see big numbers, be it dollars or users or some other obscure number, they have a reputation for shutting things down. I wish it hadn’t happened before we could stop the match!”