Farewell, Google Stadia; about 10 hours ago, Google's streaming service finally ended after three years. While there was some praise for the way the company handled the shutdown (all customers received refunds and controllers received a firmware update (open in new tab) to enable bluetooth functionality) and some unseemly celebration, developers and players alike were equally Mostly there was sadness about what they would lose.

I guess you don't know what you've got until it's gone, and Stadia's last week brought one small game surprise in the form of its first (open in new tab) game, which was the last release of the service: a Worm Game and The man who spent 6,000 hours playing Red Dead Online on Stadia (open in new tab) streamed his final journey into the Wild West on the service, helping to ease the pain with Rockstar's save transfer feature and a big grab bag. He streamed his final trip.

One element of Stadia's closure, at least initially, was Google's purchase of exclusive rights to the service. These titles tended to be smaller, existing studios producing smaller, quirkier titles, different in scale from the typical blockbusters from platform holders. Some of these were ported, but many remain in limbo and may never be played again.

One influential game was Q-Games' "Pixeljunk Raiders," a entry in the long-running Pixeljunk series, which is no longer there.

Dylan Cuthbert, founder and CEO of Q-Games, told the BBC (open in new tab) that the studio spent two years developing the game and that "it's a real shame that a game we spent years working on will no longer be playable.

"We're hoping to talk to publishers who are willing to work with us to release it on PC, PS5, or other platforms," Cuthbert said, "because the IP is ours and we're trying to find a way to do that."

Cuthbert added that Google has "positive thoughts" on the matter, and that if it does happen, they would probably "want to rework the game a bit. But nothing has been decided yet."

For other titles, such as Splash Damage's "Outcasters," the news is much darker. The studio released a statement saying, "At this time, we have no plans to release 'Outcasters' on any other platforms. It added that the game "relies heavily" on many of Stadia's features, making it no simple task.

"The team has put a lot of love into this game and it's a great opportunity to be at the forefront of gaming technology," the studio said on social media (open in new tab). Exciting projects are in the works, but 'Outcasters' will always hold a special place in our hearts," the studio said on social media.

Larian Studios thanked those who played "Baldur's Gate 3" on Stadia (obviously not an exclusive title) and said (open in new tab) that they are "looking into alternative streaming solutions to keep you playing."

More happy news came from Necrosoft about Gunsport. "[Stadia's shutdown] means that all exclusives, like the original Gunsport, will blink out of existence," it said in a statement (opens in new tab). "However. We care about preserving the game, so we have made an offline version of Gunsport available on the Steam version of Hyper Gunsport via the beta channel."

There are also the odd little things that disappear, like the strange exclusive content in Final Fantasy XV.

Stadia's subreddit can be depressing (open in new tab) or black humor.

Stadia herself posted a list of credits beginning with the message "gg, thanks for playing with us."

In response to the above, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney paid tribute to how Stadia was managed from start to finish. Stadia was a great initiative that helped a lot of developers, including supporting Unreal Engine development before Fortnite went viral." I thank the Google Stadia team for managing this project and its end so elegantly."

Tim Sweeney praises another major tech company' I guess funerals bring out the best in people.

Farewell and goodbye to a service that promised the future but failed to find a foothold in the present; whatever else can be said about the Google Stadia service, the core technology worked (of the streaming services I used, I encountered the odd lag (It was by far the best streaming service I used, even if I did encounter the odd lag). And cloud gaming will undoubtedly play an important role in the future of gaming. But let's look on the bright side: at least we didn't get a Stadia tattoo (opens in new tab).