Much of Stadia’s details are now widely known and readily available to the public for those who don’t yet know, but there are still bits and pieces of information that consumers may have questions about. As it gets closer to the release date for Google’s cloud gaming service more of that information is being discussed, leading to questions being answered. One such question that Stadia was recently keen to answer was what happens to games if a publisher pulls support?
More specifically, what happens to a game that a Stadia subscriber has already purchased if the publisher pulls the game title from the platform? According to the Stadia team, these games will remain available on the platform to stream for those who have already bought the game in the event that a publisher pulls it from the platform. This means existing customers can still play it going forward but new subscribers won’t have access to it.
This is a double-edged sword of sorts. While this is good news for those that have already paid money for the game as they won’t lose access to something they spent money on, it removes any possibility of future customers getting the chance to pick up the title. Then again ignorance is bliss, and if new customers never knew about the title being available prior to their subscription being set up, then they likely wouldn’t care too much.
The same thing could be said for anyone who subscribes and finds out that a title used to be on the platform that isn’t any longer, as it’s not something they would be able to change anyway. So while it might be a slight letdown for anyone that signs up for Stadia if they find out a game they would have been interested in is no longer available to buy, current Stadia founders and anyone who plans to sign up early can have a sigh of relief that their purchases will be safe.
In addition to clearing things up on purchased games Google mentions that support for virtual reality is not currently in the works, but it specifically says that it has “no news to share regarding VR” which leaves things open-ended, meaning there could be support for VR on Stadia at some point in the future development of the platform.
Google also mentions that controllers were designed to be connected to WiFi for gameplay but they can be hardwired to a PC, tablet, or smartphone via a USB-C cable if the user prefers. The Stadia controller also supports Bluetooth Low Energy but this is only used for setting the controller up and not for a gameplay connection.
In regards to which tablets and phones will support Stadia at launch, the Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL are still the only initial phones that will be able to access the service, but when it comes to tablets things are a little more opened up as any tablet that runs Chrome OS will be able to connect to Stadia and allow for the user to play games, so there are a few more options there.