Stadia is shutting down coming this January, and the cloud-gaming service is refunding almost every purchase you ever made. Here’s how to make sure you get your Stadia refund and see how much will be sent.
When is Stadia shutting down?
Stadia’s cloud gaming service comes to a close on January 18, 2023. Once that date arrives, Stadia will no longer allow you to play games on the website, making your Stadia hardware likely very unusable.
Until that point, you’ll be able to play whatever you want on the service, with the servers being alive until that day comes next year.
Which items are eligible for refund?
The good news here is that Stadia actually pulled a respectable move a little over a month ago and announced that all game and hardware purchases would be refunded, so long as they were purchased online. What’s included in that? Here’s the current list of eligible refunds:
- Game purchases
- Game add-on purchases
- Stadia Controller purchases
- Founder Edition purchase
- Premiere Edition purchase
- Play and Watch with Google TV package purchase
If you’ve ever made a transaction for any of the above items through Stadia’s online storefront, whether digital or physical, Stadia will be refunding those purchases. Purchases made in Best Buy or in person will not be refunded, only what’s tied to your online account and purchased through Stadia’s website.
Depending on how much you invested in Stadia, you could be looking at hundreds of dollars worth of refunded money.
How do I get my Stadia refund?
Depending on how much you stand to get back from the cloud-gaming platform, you’re probably wondering how and when the money will come through. Fortunately, Google released some important information regarding the refund process, with most of the process being pretty hands-off.
According to Google, Stadia will attempt to automatically process refunds for eligible software purchases starting today, November 9. The company has made it clear that contacting support about refunds won’t speed up the process and that it could take until mid-January for refunds to fully process. This includes refunds for hardware purchased through Google.
If you’ve deleted your account since then, Stadia will try to refund the original method. On the other hand, even if you paid for something with a gift card, Stadia will be refunding your gift purchase.
Changing your payment method
During this process, there may be some purchases that need extra attention. You can head to pay.google.com and click the bell icon in the header. From there, you can adjust each transaction and change your refund method if needed.
Will I get a refund from Stadia Pro?
The one thing Stadia isn’t refunding is your money spent on a Pro subscription. The company announced that monthly subscriptions would not be eligible for the refund rollout, though active subscriptions will remain in effect at no charge until January of next year.
How do I know how much I’ll get?
Figuring out how much you’ll get in refunds is pretty easy. You’ll need to visit two Google websites with the account you used to make those purchases. Here’s how:
- Head to https://store.google.com/orderhistory in any browser.
- Tally up Stadia-related purchases, such as controllers.
- Head to https://stadia.google.com/settings/payments.
- Add up any non-Pro online purchases made.
Whatever your total is will be a pretty good estimate as to how much you’ll see back from Stadia. Again, this is a generous move from the company, and any refund will have a bittersweet feeling to it.
The company will be emailing everyone with information as soon as it becomes available, so be on the lookout for a message from Google.
More on Stadia:
- Google has already stopped selling the Stadia Controller – now it needs Bluetooth unlocked
- Google Stadia is shutting down in January, all purchases will be refunded
- Google’s Phil Harrison told employees of Stadia’s shutdown minutes before the public
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