Stadia's Shutdown Is Awful News For One Red Dead Redemption 2 Player
Google has finally pulled the plug on its cloud gaming service, Stadia, to the surprise of almost no one. However, some gamers who continued to use Stadia are now left desperate as countless hours worth of gaming are about to be poured down the drain. One such user, a "Red Dead Redemption 2" fan, took to Twitter in order to appeal to Rockstar Games, the creators of "RDR2," to make transferring his in-game progress a possibility. Will Rockstar Games try to find a way to help the user?
Many gamers put a few dozen hours into a game and then put it down, and "RDR2" is definitely a title that you can complete once and then move on from if you want to. However, for many gamers, once they find their absolute favorite, they stay loyal to it for months and years. Building up progress in a game for thousands of hours means that if you lose the save file, you'll definitely miss it. Twitter user and YouTuber ItsColourTV (also known as Colour) is one such player who certainly wishes he could preserve his "RDR2" progress.
6,000 hours are about to go down the drain
Based on tweet embedded below, you can probably guess why losing Google Stadia is such a big deal to Colour: the gamer had amassed nearly 6,000 hours worth of playtime in "Red Dead Redemption 2" and is alarmed by the prospect of losing his progress. In the comments underneath Colour's desperate tweet, sympathetic users tried to come up with different ways to save his character. One user pointed out that Stadia data can be exported in ZIP and JSON formats, which means that these saves could very well be used by a PC gamer. However, Colour strictly plays in online mode, and it seems that this data is currently not going to be transferred.
No you don't understand how seriously pissed off I am pic.twitter.com/UZ157WLmru
— Colour (@ItsColourTV) September 29, 2022
In a Google Stadia FAQ, the company explains that you may be able to carry over your progress to another platform, but it also says the following: "Unfortunately, for the majority of games, that won't be possible." On an upside, Google intends to refund all Stadia hardware and game purchases made through the Google Store, but it will not be refunding money spent on Stadia Pro subscriptions. While the refund is definitely a good thing for those who are eligible, the news is still bittersweet for gamers like Colour who just want to continue where they left off.
Will Rockstar Games, or Google itself, address the problem? It's hard to say. It's likely that Google considered this issue when deciding to sunset Stadia, so it's possible that nothing can be done. On the other hand, seeing as Colour played online, it's possible the character will persist on Rockstar Games' servers. Barring Rockstar stepping in with a transfer option, however, it seems that Colour may soon lose his "Red Dead Redemption 2" progress.