Google said Stadia would shut down in January 2023 and promised refunds for hardware, games, and add-ons bought through its store. The Verge reported the closure and refund plan.
The idea of playing without buying a console was appealing, but a cloud library is only useful while its owner keeps the servers running. The refunds were fair. They could not refund time spent building a library inside a service Google abandoned. Stadia’s lesson for me was to ask what happens to purchases when the platform exits, before trusting another all-cloud store.