Although Google is responsible for creating many of the products and services many of us rely on to function in modern times, it doesn't have the best track record when it comes to maintaining those services long-term.
The company is notorious for launching promising tools and shutting them down later, and that has certainly sparked some wariness in its userbase. When the tech giant first announced Stadia, concerns that it would be shut down in the future -- causing gamers to lose all the content they paid for -- were common, and Google did little to soothe those fears.
However, it seems it's not just Stadia's potential player base that worries about the platform's future; game developers are in a similar boat. According to one such developer, Gwen Frey (the woman behind Stadia launch title Kine), the "biggest complaint" among many studios and solo devs is the "fear that Google is just going to cancel it."
"Nobody ever says, 'Oh, it's not going to work,' or 'Streaming isn't the future,'" Frey said in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz. "Everyone accepts that streaming is pretty much inevitable. The biggest concern with Stadia is that it might not exist."
"Everyone accepts that streaming is pretty much inevitable. The biggest concern with Stadia is that it might not exist."
While Frey acknowledges these concerns, she also believes they're largely unfounded. Specifically, she points out that not "every fucking thing" Google makes gets canceled -- a fair point, if not a particularly reassuring one. Indeed, Google does not shutter all of the services it releases, but the key difference between Stadia and many of Google's other now-dead projects is that users are expected to pay not-insignificant sums for the privilege of using the former.
Each game you access on the service (barring the handful that will initially be included in the optional monthly subscription) must be purchased at their full asking prices; barring any sales, of course. If Stadia were to shut down someday, users could be out hundreds of dollars, which is quite a different situation than, say, losing your free Google+ account.
Regardless, we cannot predict the future, and it may well be that Stadia will become a resounding and long-lasting success over the next decade or so. We'll be sure to keep you updated on the platform's progress over time.
https://www.techspot.com/news/82760-stadia-launch-title-creator-other-devs-worried-google.html
