Launched in November of 2019, Google’s Stadia service allows gamers to stream PC titles from a variety of publishers directly to their web browser or one of Google’s Chromecast devices. Prior to the launch of Stadia, many gamers were excited by the prospect of a tech juggernaut like Google entering the cloud gaming space, with hopes that having the technical and financial backing of such a powerful company could help make cloud gaming a viable option. Although Stadia received praise for its streaming technology, offering lower latency than many competitors, it ultimately never took off with gamers and Google announced that it would be shutting down the service in early 2023.
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In a tweet from Ubisoft’s official player support account, the company announced that they are working to allow gamers who purchased Ubisoft titles through Google Stadia to transfer those purchases to Ubisoft Connect. Ubisoft Connect is the publisher’s attempt at creating a one-stop shop for gamers across multiple platforms, offering a PC game storefront similar to Steam or the Epic Games Store alongside cloud streaming and in-game items. No details were provided on how the transfer process will work, with the tweet promising that specific details would come later.
As cloud streaming continues to become a bigger part of the gaming landscape on both PC and consoles, questions will continue to be raised about what “owning” a game on one of these services really means. While Ubisoft fans will be able to transfer their games to a new service, other publishers have yet to make such a commitment for their own titles, leaving their customers wondering what happens now. This has left some gamers feeling left out in the cold, like the player set to lose the 6,000 hours they spent in Red Dead Online after Stadia shuts down. Cloud gaming brings gamers the freedom to play the titles they love from anywhere, but also the worry that the services providing them could disappear at any time.
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