Google Stadia is being billed as the future of gaming, and it may very well be, all things considered. However, since all games will be stored in the cloud, one has to wonder what will happen to all games on the platform should Google Stadia shuts down?
Stadia's director of product, Andrey Doronichev, tried to answer this burning question during a Q&A on Reddit. In his response, which didn't truly answer the question, Doronichev put away fears about games in the cloud. He compared the situation to music and movie streaming and how things are fine on that end.
"I hear you. Moving to the cloud is scary," he said. "I felt the same way when music was transitioning from files to streaming. I still have all my old CDs in the garage… although it's hard to find a CD player these days :)"
"The same happened to Movies and Photos and my Docs and other files… And it’s great! Games are no different. Eventually, all of our games will be safely in the cloud too and we'll feel great about it," Doronichev said. "We've been investing a ton in tech, infrastructure and partnerships over the past few years. Nothing in life is certain, but we’re committed to making Stadia a success."
He went on to add that gamers will have the option to download metadata of their games from Stadia, but the ability to download an entire video game won't be on the cards. As it stands, then, if Stadia shuts down, subscribers probably will not have the ability to download their games unless Google makes a massive change in the future.