Google Offers Refunds For Stadia Purchases Ahead Of Cloud-Gaming Platform's Jan Shutdown — But Is Everything Eligible

Alphabet Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Stadia is shutting down in January and the cloud-gaming platform is refunding almost every purchase users made.

What Happened: Stadia's shutdown process includes fully refunding any purchased games or hardware from the online Google Store, including Stadia Controller, Founder's Edition, Premiere Edition and Play and Watch with Google TV packages.

The refunds have begun on Nov. 9 and most of it is expected to be completed by Jan. 18 — Stadia's shutdown date — reported ARS Technica. 

Keep an eye on your email inbox to find out if Google has attempted to process your refunds.

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Google will also refund in-game currency purchases through the Stadia store. Stadia Pro subscriptions, however, are not eligible for a refund. Users can continue playing games in Pro without paying additional charges until the final wind-down date. 

The explanation shared by the tech giant only includes hardware purchases from the online Google Store. Simply put, if a user has bought a Stadia kit from Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), or a physical Google Store, they won't get any refund. 

Why It's Important: Google intends to refund three years of purchases across more than 20 countries, which will undoubtedly be a complicated logistical problem, states the report.

A company's balance sheet is usually negatively affected by unsuccessful services, but Stadia's shutdown seems particularly expensive, said the report.

In the end, Google will not only pay off stakeholders but wind up having massive stacks of single-use hardware that obviously don't have any utilization, the report noted.  

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