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Stadia port of game is broken, can't be fixed because Google shut down the studio responsible.

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buttzilla

buttzilla

Member
Sep 9, 2020
1,386
From this thread on reddit

User is having the main menu freeze on Journey To The Savage Planet on Stadia, a game developed by Typhoon Studios who Stadia bought in 2019.

User first reaches out to Stadia, since it's an issue on a Stadia game on Stadia's platform.

Screenshot_20210210-083837.jpg


They tell user to reach out to the publisher of the game, 505 Games for assistance.

User reaches out to 505:

Screenshot_20210217-172129.jpg


They tell user to reach out to Stadia since it's a Stadia issue, and the game & code are owned by Stadia/Google.

User informs 505 that they were told to reach out to the publisher by Stadia:

Screenshot_20210217-174631.jpg



A final reply from 505 support explaining there's nothing 505 can do and it's all on Google's end:

Screenshot_20210218-174247__01.jpg


explaining Google/Stadia own the code and the product since they acquired Typhoon Studios.


or as Shane from the YouTube channel Rerez sums up in this tweet:

 
AaronD

AaronD

Member
Dec 1, 2017
3,253
This is the end result of 90% of Google projects. You were willfully blind if you didn't think Stadia won't end this way.
 
Cess007

Cess007

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,078
B.C., Mexico
I remember reading and watching some streams about Journey to the Savage Planet and being ultra interested. Never got around the buy the game, but it's a shame the Dev studio was closed :(
 
poklane

poklane

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,861
the Netherlands
AaronD said:
This is the end result of 90% of Google projects. You were willfully blind if you didn't think Stadia won't end this way.
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This. People need to stop buying into brand new Google products and services, no multi-billion company loves to try new stuff only to shut it down within a couple of years because it doesn't immediately generate billions in profit like Google does.
 
Damaniel

Damaniel

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,535
Portland, OR
The moral of the story is to never use a (individual, not enterprise) Google product beyond Gmail and search - anything else could be killed at any time.
 
LycanXIII

LycanXIII

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
9,974
So what team is responsible for fixing any bugs on the other platforms if there is a problem?
 
Absoludacrous

Absoludacrous

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
3,182
This is basically foreshadowing what's going to happen to everyone's purchases on the service.

Beauty of cloud-exclusivity.
 

Deleted member 79451

Member
Aug 30, 2020
2,171
This is bound to always happen on streaming services and something I foresaw and mentioned previously. On PC, any particular make (a specific build, a single user's computer) might have a problem with some random game which requires user intervention with settings / user mods, etc. On a streaming service that one make is decided by the streaming service.

It's not like a console where you might consider a game's drivers and hardware to be static after the game's final patches are released. They're going to patch the virtual machines, the drivers, and update the hardware.
 
mael

mael

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
16,756
LycanXIII said:
So what team is responsible for fixing any bugs on the other platforms if there is a problem?
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The people contracted to handle maintenance.
It's just that in this case, it was a Stadia company....that closed.
Think of it like Master System games, they may have been other company's games but Sega did all the programming and technically owned the code.
 
OP
OP
buttzilla

buttzilla

Member
Sep 9, 2020
1,386
Real kick in the butt was the game released on Stadia the same day Google announced the closure of Typhoon Studios. Barely got to see their own work released on the platform owned by their boss.
 
Biske

Biske

Member
Nov 11, 2017
8,255
AaronD said:
This is the end result of 90% of Google projects. You were willfully blind if you didn't think Stadia won't end this way.
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Sadly true. I say this as a google loving android user. They just don't give a fuck when they are ready to abandon a product. They don't give a fuck.
 
Rosebud

Rosebud

Two Pieces
Member
Apr 16, 2018
43,478
Still can't believe they bought Typhoon to close it a year later.

There's limits in being an asshole.
 
Dreamwriter

Dreamwriter

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,461
I thought Google hadn't shut down any studios yet. They announced that they were going to shut down studios later this year, not immediately, because they wanted to give the teams plenty of time to finish up their current projects and stuff (also, in California there are laws that keep mass layoffs from happening the same time they are announced).
 
DarthWalden

DarthWalden

Prophet of Truth
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,030
Wait, they closed the studio that made Journey to a Savage Planet?

That is devastating! That game was amazing.
 
Dreamwriter

Dreamwriter

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,461
In fact, Typhoon Studios just announced an upcoming update yesterday. So no, they are not shut down yet.
 
Bonfires Down

Bonfires Down

Member
Nov 2, 2017
2,813
That sucks for the five people who bought it on Stadia.

Seriously though, it's obviously unacceptable, though I assume that Google will at least give out refunds if they can't fix it.
 
Dervius

Dervius

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,895
UK
Had no idea Typhoon had been bought by Google, nor that they had apparently been shut down.

I literally finished (and loved) Journey to the Savage Planet last week. What a shit show.
 
Rosebud

Rosebud

Two Pieces
Member
Apr 16, 2018
43,478
Btw, amazing that Google apparently asked the customer to contact 505 Games.

"Please inform them that the publisher is actually them" lmao
 
jediyoshi

jediyoshi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,117
For a moment I was gonna think surely there'd be ways of trouble shooting this so the user could get the game to work, then I remembered the user is literally just being streamed a video feed.
 
MaulerX

MaulerX

Member
Oct 30, 2017
2,691
Bonfires Down said:
That sucks for the five people who bought it on Stadia.

Seriously though, it's obviously unacceptable, though I assume that Google will at least give out refunds if they can't fix it.
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Sad but true. A lawyer probably wouldn't take it to class-action status because of hardly any users to make a claim. Horrible situation all around.
 
NinjaScooter

NinjaScooter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
54,100
OP where is the source for Typhoon being shut down because I don't see that anywhere online and your timeline in your OP just sort skips over that?

EDIT: from a few minutes of digging it seems like the assumption was made that Typhoon was shuttered when Google shut down its internal development, but that blog post above made by Typhoon about an update to the game just like 2 days ago is awfully strange. Seems like some sort of miscommunication is going on here.

EDIT2: Okay that blog post is 2020 not 2021 lol. So it looks like Typhoon was shut down when Google closed up all internal development.
 
TheMadTitan

TheMadTitan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
27,197
This kind of support isn't surprising from the company that killed the greatest homepage, iGoogle. It's why all of the Android phones I buy are from non-Google brands. And sure, it's still Android, but Android is open source and if Google dumped it, someone else would pick it up (probably Microsoft), and the mobile phone world would keep on trucking.

Google does far too many things half-baked and bails far too often and far too soon.
 
OP
OP
buttzilla

buttzilla

Member
Sep 9, 2020
1,386
NinjaScooter said:
OP where is the source for Typhoon being shut down because I don't see that anywhere online and your timeline in your OP just sort skips over that?
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blog.google

Focusing on Stadia’s future as a platform, and winding down SG&E

We’re expanding our efforts to help game developers and publishers take advantage of our platform technology, and winding down SG\u0026E.
blog.google blog.google
www.engadget.com

Google is shutting down its Stadia game studios

Industry veteran Jade Raymond is leaving Google as it focuses on third-party games.
www.engadget.com www.engadget.com

edit: February 1st, 2021, same day their game was released on Stadia, and less than a week after this exclusive interview with Typhoon Games' head Reid Schneider, who was super stoked about the future of working with Stadia and the studios next moves
 
NinjaScooter

NinjaScooter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
54,100
buttzilla said:
blog.google

Focusing on Stadia’s future as a platform, and winding down SG&E

We’re expanding our efforts to help game developers and publishers take advantage of our platform technology, and winding down SG\u0026E.
blog.google blog.google
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Thanks just saw that after some digging. The year on Typhoon's blog post threw me off.

As far as the issue in question, not sure what more can be done and it sucks. I doubt anybody else is going to take up the task of fixing a game that they didn't develop.
 
OP
OP
buttzilla

buttzilla

Member
Sep 9, 2020
1,386
samred said:
Yesterday, Stadia publicly claimed they were working on the issue:



That's three days after 505's last message in this quoted series, so it's currently the "latest news" on the topic.
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So the real question is who published the Employee of the Month edition? 9to5Google seems to think it's Google:
It's worth noting that the "partner publisher" for Journey to the Savage Planet is actually Google itself. The game was the first published under the Stadia Games and Entertainment badge for the "Developers" tag, ironically going live on the platform on the day that SG&E was shuttered. As a result, we're not entirely sure where Google is looking to for a fix, though the task is likely falling to what remains of Typhoon Studios or the other publisher, 505 Games.
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Though the above DM's from 505 say they don't have access to the game code.
 
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