He says the majority of customers should get their money back by mid-January. Google began processing refunds ahead of the upcoming shutdown of the Stadia service.
The company recently announced that players will lose access to their game libraries and on January 18, 2023, the game streaming service will be shut down.
It also confirmed that it intends to refund all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store.
Google in a new FAQ “Starting November 9, 2022, Stadia will attempt to automatically process refunds for all non-Stadia Pro purchases of games, add-on content, and subscription fees through the Stadia Store,” it said.
“We ask for your patience as we work through each transaction and ask that you refrain from contacting Customer Support as they cannot expedite your refund during this time. We still expect most refunds to be processed by January 18, 2023.” used the phrases. So don't call bro, we will pay. We're not running away..
Most of these refunds for Stadia hardware purchased through the Google Store are also expected to be processed by this date.
Google said it will try to provide refunds with the original payment method, and if that's not possible, it will email customers instructions on how to set up an alternative refund method.
Announcing plans to shut down Stadia in September, platform general manager Phil Harrison admitted that the service did not reach the user numbers Google expected after its launch in November 2019.
According to Google, the underlying technology platform powering Stadia will be used in other parts of the company such as YouTube, Google Play, and Augmented Reality (AR) efforts.
“We are deeply committed to gaming and will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that support the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators,” Harrison said.
“For the Stadia team, building and supporting Stadia from the ground up was fueled by the same passion for gaming our players have. Many of the Stadia team members will take this work further in other parts of the company.”
Since then, multiple game studios said they've been working on ways to port player accounts from Stadia games to other platforms. These include Assassin's Creed producer Ubisoft, Destiny studio Bungie, Hitman creator IO Interactive, and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red.
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