Google has given back three years of Stadia purchases starting this week

It was Google Stadia Mark to dieAnd, as part of the four-month shutdown, Google mercifully promised a full refund for any games or hardware purchased from the moribund service. Updated FAQ on google support site Now he explains how this process will work. Google says refunds began yesterday, November 9, and the company expects “the majority of refunds” to be completed by Stadia’s closing date, January 18, 2023.

Google will refund almost everything except the monthly Stadia Pro service fee. Here is the full recovery description:

Refunding three years of purchases in more than 20 countries will be a complex logistical problem. People move and change banks and credit cards, some people even delete their Google accounts. Just keeping track of everyone who bought Stadia would be tricky. However, the first step is easy: Google will attempt to “automatically return the funds for each transaction to the payment method used to make the purchase.”

If that doesn’t work, you’ll receive an email on the Google account used to make the purchase with instructions on how to set up an alternative method for a refund through a partner company called “Payoneer”. if who – which Not working, possibly because you deleted your Google account, Google encourages customers to “please contact Stadia customer service and be prepared to provide the deleted account email, last transaction date, and last transaction amount.”

This looks expensive

Unsuccessful services generally take a toll on the company’s balance sheet, but it looks like shutting down Stadia will be especially costly. In addition to paying rejected stakeholders, Google will be left with heaps of single-use devices that now have no apparent use.

The company refunds customers for games purchased, but it still needs to pay developers for sales of those games, so it loses out on both ends. Stadia’s sudden shutdown has left partner developers hanging with half-finished ports and patchy contacts, and some developers have indicated that Google is willing to make deals to fix things up.

Stadia has also included the development of a dedicated Wi-Fi controller, and Google is refunding those purchases as well. Besides losing all the time and money I invested in developing it, the company will now have to do something with its unsold piles, now almost useless controllers. Stadia basically lets you rent remote access to a mid-range gaming PC, and because Google’s regular hardware stack isn’t suitable for PC gaming, the company had to invest in a set of server hardware specifically for Stadia. Google will now try to rescue these devices by selling the rest of Stadia as google cloud service It’s called Stereoscopic Game Broadcasting.

For those single-use devices, there is a campaign underway to push Google into it Open the Stadia console So that it can be a general purpose Bluetooth controller. Google has not yet commented on this idea, but the FAQ states that if you don’t mind converting a file Turn the clock back 20 yearsYou can still use the console with a wire. This isn’t ideal, and given that the controller is already Bluetooth compatible, it would be nice if Google patched general wireless support to reduce electronic waste.

“We ask for your patience as we work through each transaction and ask that you refrain from contacting customer support as they will not be able to expedite the refund process during this time,” Google said.

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