If It Fails, Google Stadia May Be Destined for a Fate Worse Than Death
The gaming platform may fade into obscurity, like so many other Google products
Before Google’s Stadia even launched earlier this month, worries that the company would eventually get bored of the gaming platform and simply cancel it were so widespread that even developers working on games for the service found themselves weighing in. But if Stadia doesn’t turn out to be the hit Google hopes it could be, the way the company has abandoned products in the past suggests a fate worse than cancellation. Google may just stop investing in Stadia, forcing it to languish in obscurity.
Google has certainly earned some ire for outright killing services people use. Arguably starting with Google Reader’s untimely demise, the company has never shied away from ending services that are redundant or unpopular. Inbox served as a testing ground for features that were (mostly) harvested for Gmail, and Google killed it when it was no longer useful. Allo, yet another attempt at messaging, was shut down when it became clear that almost no one used it.
But Google takes a different approach with some of its services that are popular or that users pay significant amounts of money to use. Instead of killing them, Google keeps them alive but rarely…
