Stadia Employees Allegedly Found Out About Shutdown Less Than An Hour Before Everyone Else

Stadia may not have taken off in the way that Google hoped but still, its imminent closure has come as a shock to many. Yesterday, Google revealed Stadia will officially be shutting down for good on 18 January, 2023. Whilst players will be refunded for hardware, game, and add-on purchases made through the Google Store, indie developers are sharing how the sudden news will impact their upcoming releases. It’s now been revealed that the news was equally shocking to Google employees.

According to 9To5Google, Stadia’s general manager Phil Harrison only told employees that the Stadia would be shutting down minutes before the news was announced to the public. The news was particularly shocking to staff as a new Stadia game had just released, plus the company had recently launched its new UI design.

9To5Google spoke to several sources who said that the employee meeting was held 45 minutes prior to the public announcement. The email to staff allegedly read, “We’ll be having a Stadia team meeting today, 29 September at 8:30 AM PT to share some important updates with everyone. Apologies for the short notice - we would appreciate it if you can please prioritise attending this meeting, or check in with your manager afterwards if you can’t make it. Details have been added to your calendars. This will be a virtual-only meeting, so please feel free to join from wherever you’re working today.”

An anonymous employee took to Reddit to reportedly share their thoughts on the news. User Ok_Tumbleweed2102 wrote, “(I guess now former) Stadia engineer here. None of us knew this would happen and this is how Phil announced this to all of us at 8:30 this morning: ‘Apologies for the short notice.’ Never working on anything he is even associated with ever again.”

It’s believed that Stadia employees will be moved onto other Google projects.