Terraria developer cancels previously unannounced Stadia port

A little bit of backstory: a few weeks ago, Redigit and the rest of the Re-Logic team found themselves apparently locked out of their Youtube account and associated Google accounts (their videos are still present, however their icon is noticeably blanked out, as are their playlists and popular videos sections.) They eventually posted about the situation on the official Terraria twitter, in hopes of getting a response, and seemingly found themselves without an explanation for why their account had been locked, let alone assistance in unlocking it.

A few days ago, it was noticed that a PEGI listing for Terraria on Google Stadia had appeared on the PEGI website, hinting at an unannounced port being in the works. However, Redigit, the head of Re-Logic and one of the main developers on Terraria, confirmed in a tweet thread this morning that while a Stadia port of the game had been underway, it was cancelled effective immediately, due to the ongoing issues between Re-Logic and Google.

This seems like a pretty rough situation all around. While the Stadia team almost certainly has little involvement with account services, it's understandable that Re-Logic would withdraw, assuming it were even possible for them to finish the project while locked out of their main account. It's also a rough title for Stadia to lose, as Terraria remains an incredibly successful game on Steam, as well as the close proximity of this news to that of Stadia shutting down all first-party development.

Unsurprising, but a shame all the same.

I only hope Redigit didn't lose too much money in pursuing the now-aborted Stadia version.

I don't think this will affect anyone too much.

Terraria is a popular game but it's very old and anyone who wanted it has it by now. It also runs on anything so people with crappy old laptops can run the Steam version fine. I doubt they were going to make a ton of money on the Stadia port either. It was probably just an easy thing to do.

Terraria was not going to be the game that turned Stadia around and the Stadia port wasn't going to have a huge impact on the developers' financials.

It does suck that Google screwed this developer over, and I do feel a little bad for the Stadia team basically being called out for something they probably didn't know about. Though if the developer reached out to the Stadia team and they ignored it then that doesn't bode well for Stadia's developer relations.

I hope the developer gets their account access restored soon.

This video from CGP Grey seems relevant to the discussion. Being locked out of your account for no discernible reason and getting no resolution for three weeks does seem shitty, but I also get the feeling that it's just the straw the broke the camel's back... I wonder what's going on with Stadia developer relations behind the scenes.

When this service was announced, I was optimistic about it. By and large from what I've heard, the tech works, though most people follow that statement up with the word "fine," ie, It's not mind blowing, it works fine. Literally everything else surrounding Stadia has seemed like a poorly planned garbage fire though. The pricing, the way you have to buy games, the lack of unique game experiences, the fact that there are still Chromecasts that DO NOT RUN STADIA... STILL. And yeah, Terraria wasn't going to be the game that brought in users (like me, for instance, who doesn't have Stadia, but can play Terraria on Steam already), but it's still a blow to the mind share of the service in general.

Reading that Twitter thread from the dev is mildly infuriating. Waves of Google stans going "well it's pretty sus that you bring this up only after Terraria is announced for Stadia" "well I'm sure you were banned for a good reason, even if you don't know it."

Ugh. Why people are compelled to rush to the defense of billion-dollar monopolistic tech companies, I have no clue.

@lapsariangiraff: Some people just want the world to be a fair and just place, and instead of fighting to make it fairer and more just they find it easier to pretend it already is.

After all the world is much less scary if a company like Google is well managed and careful in its decision making rather than being a bunch of people and policies and algorithms of varied quality all held together by an enormous amount of wealth and influence.

If anyone can get banned for no good reason then that's scary stuff. I mean when I think about how much stuff is linked to my Gmail account...

It's much more comfortable to think "as long as I'm a good boy and follow the rules nothing bad will happen" than "sometimes the software just screws up and Google doesn't have good policies or apparatuses in place to respond when it does."

I know it's easy to make fun of Google, so I will

Photo of Stadia display at GDC 2019 (courtesy of reddit), putting their product on the same pedestal as gaming greats such as Dreamcast, Power Glove, and E.T. for Atari 2600.

@goosemunch: First of all...

THE DREAMCAST WAS AMAZING! YOU TAKE ITS NAME OUT OF YOUR MOUTH, HATER!

Now that that's out of the way...

This can't be real. In addition to the fact that the Powerglove and ET were much derided failures, the time frame below the pedestals has nothing to do with the stuff in them. They're in weird reverse order. I kind of understand the "Atari -> NES-> Dreamcast -> We're going to skip the last 20 years because we don't want to talk about direct competitors Xbox and Playstation -> Stadia" idea....but what you have here is the reverse of that with labels that make no sense.

This has to be some kind of prank or joke.

http://segabits.com/blog/2019/03/19/google-stadia-takes-shots-at-sega-dreamcast-before-gdc-reveal/

It's seemingly real... I'm not sure what they were thinking, if at all. I've been skimming through the reddit comments to find more info about it, but all I've found so far is this twitter screencap:

Edit: After reading through more comments, sounds like what Google was trying to say was that they reserved a pedestal for the next (competitor's) console made obsolete by Stadia. It's crystal clear in hindsight. /s

Oh, that display is very real. And may or may not have been the object of much derision around the office...

@goosemunch: That somehow makes it worse. The Powerglove and E.T. were not made obsolete, they just sucked, and yes the consoles they are associated with are obsolete now, but they were both extremely dominant in their time.

In contrast with the Dreamcast, which was great but was never a commercial success to begin with.

And if Stadia actually thought that it was going to make the PlayStation (or Xbox or Switch) obsolete...hoo boy. That's a very special level of delusion.

It sounds like the death of Terraria's Stadia port was greatly exaggerated. From Re-Logic's monthly update for February, it sounds like Spinks pulling the plug was a bold enough move to get Google to take action, contacting them and helping them get the accounts back in working order. As such, Re-Logic decided to proceed with the port, rather than scrap their work, with the build in cert right now.

Sounds like everything's coming up Stadia to me. Nothing else in the news right now about Stadia royally screwing developers, it's all great news on the Stadia front, undeniably!

@franzlska: I know this isn't completely similar because Re-Logic is working with Google but this really reminds me of Jeff dealing with Comcast years ago. It shouldn't take loud complaining to a huge audience to get companies to move their asses. I'm sure it's no fun for the developer to have to make a public mess just to get noticed, especially when it's a company they were actively doing deals with.

@franzlska: Their post mentions their "partners at 505 Games."

My guess is that the publisher called them and was like "we have a deal with Stadia, you can't just cancel this port" and they decided not to cause friction with 505, a company they actually need to do business with, just to stick it to Google.

Of course this has also given Terraria and specifically the Stadia port of it way more publicity than any game that old generally gets so it might actually, ironically, sell a bunch more copies now.