Indie game Terraria won’t be coming to Stadia. And the reason? The indie teams’ YouTube channel was banned for no clear reason, which after weeks unfold, resulted in the Google account tied to the it fully disabled.
That Google account is tied to Andrew Spinks, lead developer of Terraria. He has now lost all access to his Gmail account of over 15 years, all data in Google Drive, and access to all purchases of apps and media on Google Play worth thousands of dollars.
Google claimed that the YouTube channel was banned for Terms of Service violation, and the official Terraria Twitter tried to resolve the matter with YouTube on Twitter to no avail.
“I absolutely have not done anything to violate your terms of service,” Spinks tweeted. “So I can take this no other way than you deciding to burn this bridge. Consider it burned.”
Google uses one account for all of its services, including Stadia. And the issue with this is that one wrong move can have all your digital footprint and purchases gone. Google also has a bad record in handling customer service like this.
Stadia has recently announced its closure of Stadia Games & Entertainment studios, shutting down first-party efforts to focus on sharing the Stadia tech with partners instead of competing as a mainstream gaming platform.
This should serve as a reminder of the side effects on relying on digital purchases. If the service stops- either because it’s shutting down or they are banning your account- all the content you paid for will be gone.
Terraria is available on the PS4, Xbox One, PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch and mobile devices.
via Ars Technica