Google is shutting down its Stadia game streaming service. Launched in 2019, the platform is attracting fewer players than the company had hoped, CEO Phil Harrison said in a statement. Articles.

With Stadia, Google was hoping to market a peer to streaming services like Netflix and Spotify, but with games. But it was not successful.

“Although Stadia’s approach to game streaming was built on a solid technology foundation, it wasn’t as popular as we expected, so we made the difficult decision to discontinue Stadia,” Harrison wrote.

Players who use Stadia will be able to play games until January 18th. By then, Google also expects to reimburse all players for the money they spent on software and hardware for Stadia games.

Google still sees opportunities to spread the technology behind Stadia elsewhere. This is possible, for example, with the YouTube video platform, the Google Play app store or with projects with augmented reality.

Stadia isn’t the only gaming streaming platform. A year after its launch, Amazon announced its own counterpart called Luna. But well-known names in the gaming industry, such as Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation, also have services that allow you to play a game directly through the cloud.