One of Stadia's Only First-Party Games Is Broken, and No Seems to Know Who Can Fix It

3 years 1 month ago
In a horrible confluence of fates, comedy-adventure game Journey to the Savage Planet was released for Stadia on the same day that Google shuttered its internal development studios – including Journey to the Savage Planet developer, Typhoon Studios. That coincidence has left behind a nasty after-effect – the Stadia version of Journey to the Savage Planet contains a major bug, but no one seems to know who can fix it. First pointed out on Reddit by user lordubuntu, Stadia's Journey to the Savage Planet launched with a nasty bug that causes freezes on the game's start screen, which seems to be occurring for a number of players based on the replies. With no local files to look through on a Stadia game, players can't work on fixes for themselves, meaning they have to turn to official support channels for help. With Typhoon no longer in existence, the game's developers can't implement that fix. As lordubuntu found out, it seems that's left both Google and Journey to the Savage Planet publisher 505 Games unsure who's responsible. Google support responses sent to lordubuntu ask them to contact 505 – but 505 support messages indicate that the company no longer has control of the game code, and say only Google would be able to implement a fix. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/google-id-software-and-bungie-named-in-lawsuit-against-stadia-ign-news"] On Reddit, a Stadia community manager has now said that Google is "actively working with our partners to identify a fix", but offered no update on who'd be responsible for that happening, or if it was possible. We've contacted 505 and Google for comment. The upshot is that some players have been left with a game they simply can't access, and with no current timeline for a fix. This would usually be routine work for a newly-released game – and it must be deeply unpleasant to be an ex-Typhoon developer knowing that you're unable to make your own hard work available to those who want to play it. Google shuttered its internal Stadia studios at the beginning of February 2021, impacting 150 employees. It's since promised that more than 100 third-party games will still arrive on the service this year. A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Google, Id Software, and Bungie for allegedly misleading customers on the platform's ability to display games at a 4K resolution. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
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Joe Skrebels

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