As someone with a gigantic games library on PSN and an older library on Steam, I didn't have much incentive to join Stadia. Watching a friend play I realized the potential and I really liked the overall attitude and helpfulness of the Stadia community.
So I decided to pre order Cyberpunk with the free hardware deal. The hardware was very important to me since, due to the pandemic cutting my income, i am currently without a working home PC. I needed the chrome cast and controller to play at all.
I refunded everything, and here's why:
No communication from the retailer about the status of the promotion. If I have to dig into forums to answer simple questions instead of being informed via email, its clearly a lack in the automated customer service every online retailer uses. I pre-ordered a few weeks in advance; zero communication about the hardware over that time.
The offer said "limited supply" which, combined with complete lack of communication meant, to me, that the offer would be unfulfilled. Why else would there be zero communication about the offer unless it wasn't valid for me?
Obviously that was an incorrect assumption, since they finally communicated via email the day AFTER release. By this point I had already canceled the pre order.
So, despite the fact I can see the hardware works and I see a gaming community I would like to join, I will not be a stadia user due to the bad taste this experience has left me.
The lack of attention of basic customer notification shows me Google isn't ready to service the gaming community at large. Which is too bad because your community's multiplayer experience could really improve with additional members.
This lack of service is not how you do that.
Happy gaming Stadia users, I wish you the best of luck with this company.
Sorry you feel that way - it was all very clear to me and in the T&C's no need to go searching for answers.
Sure i might have missed something. So apparently did a whole ton of people since looking at this forum, reddit, etc is all asking the same questions about whether or not the deal would even be honored.
I really feel for the actual humans that had to answer this question over and over again all because google can't communicate well. Even a single email from them about the deal already purchased would have alleviated this for most folks.
You don't leave NEW CUSTOMERS in the dark on a hardware deal ![]()