Less than 3 years years after throwing a splashy launch event, Google is shutting down its game-streaming service Stadia

• Google announced on Thursday it was shutting down its cloud gaming service Stadia after two years.
• It said Stadia "hasn't gained the traction with users that we expected."

Less than three years after launching its cloud gaming service Stadia, Google is shutting it down.

Stadia launched in November 2019 as part of Google's aggressive expansion into gaming. But on Thursday, the company said it had "made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service."

Users will have access to their games until January 18, 2023, and all hardware purchases made through the Google Store will be refunded, the company said.

Google said Stadia "hasn't gained the traction with users that we expected."

Google said that it still sees opportunities for the technology that powered Stadia, and that it would apply it to other sectors of its company like Google Play and YouTube.

Signs of trouble had been bubbling up. Last year, Google said it was closing its internal Stadia game studio in favor of helping game makers "take advantage of our platform technology and deliver games directly to their players."

Further, Insider's Hugh Langley reported earlier this year that Google had "deprioritized" the Stadia consumer platform — as in, the games — and was instead focusing on striking deals with companies like Bungie to "salvage" the technology.