Today, Google announced that they would be “winding down” their Stadia streaming gaming service, with shutdown occurring in January of next year. Refunds will be issued for applicable purchases.

While it got goofed on for the majority of it’s run for bad decisions on different levels that we’ll get to in a second, I’m disappointed to see it go. I was a Stadia player, and Madden flew on the service.

But it failed. And it failed because it couldn’t foster enough immersive games and grow their multiplayer community.

The place was a ghost town on most days. There were not tribes or groups, there was nothing to hold on to. And we need multiplayer options here in 2022.

And the library just wasn’t any good. Yes, we had Destiny 2 but it never took off. Elder Scrolls online was clunky. Matchmaking took a long time on other titles.

We were on the outside of other important gaming communities. We had no Call of Duty, no Apex, no Fortnite. We had PubG, but once again we had nobody to play with.

Single player titles weren’t much better. Saints Row? Destroy All Humans? That’s not going to do it.

And while there are many jokes being made, Stadia was the only viable solution for a gamer that was broke like myself. We can’t run out and drop 2K for a gaming computer or several hundred for a console. We’re out of luck.

The mission of an affordable gaming service like Stadia can’t be abandoned. There is a place in the market for this.

But if Google can’t figure it out, who will?