Support us on Patreon
PayPalStadia is back on the spotlight and not for their overhype, new games or stopping first-party games, in fact it's due to Terraria now being cancelled due to Google locking the accounts of a developer. This isn't just any developer either, this is coming from Terraria developer Andrew Spinks, who is the founder of Re-Logic.
Spinks wrote a thread on Twitter, highlighting the issue after being locked out of a Google account now for three weeks. That means access has been lost to anything purchased on Google Play, all the data on Google Drive, even the official YouTube account for Terraria cannot be accessed due to all this.
In a follow-up tweet Spinks mentioned that the bridge has been burned and so Terraria for Google Stadia is officially done and cancelled and that Re-Logic will "no longer support any of your platforms moving forward" and in another "I will not be involved with a corporation that values their customers and partners so little. Doing business with you is a liability."
You would think, that if it was coming to Stadia and it was already rated for it by PEGI, that Google would be keeping a close eye on it. Enough to ensure the developer can actually access anything. Apparently not.
A time where Google could really use some good news for Stadia, treating developers like this is clearly not going to go over well with anyone. This will likely put off other developers too, the damage of this happening with such a hugely popular game can't be understated.
It's a shocking reminder that many of us (myself included) rely too heavily one on single provider for multiple things. Personally, I have begun moving from Gmail wherever possible to ProtonMail and might I suggest you try it too. The trouble with Google is they are almost everywhere, I couldn't imagine losing so much and never getting an answer.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
It's a shocking reminder that many of us (myself included) rely too heavily one on single provider for multiple things. Personally, I have begun moving from Gmail wherever possible to ProtonMail and might I suggest you try it too. The trouble with Google is they are almost everywhere, I couldn't imagine losing so much and never getting an answer.
I can suggest also Nextcloud (self hosted on a rpi or with a provider from https://nextcloud.com/signup/ official website). For search, qwant https://www.qwant.com/ or duckduck go. As for phone, you can already turn off most apps, and if you have a flashable phone, https://lineage.microg.org/ lineage with microg is google free but can run even proprietary apps.
14 Likes, Who?
Google is great at coming up with new tech solutions and running systems at a global scale but boy do they suck at supporting their customers. We've seen this countless on YouTube with dubious DMCA claims taking down channels and only after a big enough uproar do things get looked at by someone at Google.
At this rate Google will make the owner of https://killedbygoogle.com/ bankrupt because of constantly having to upgrade the hosting plan to accommodate all the dead Google projects lol.
Also, Liam makes a good point about relying on one provider for a lot of things. While it is convenient having one account but the risk of losing everything is too high. At the very least moving your email to a different provider might be good enough since email is used as a recovery method for most services so you could also lose access to other non-Google accounts if Google decides to terminate your account.
At this rate Google will make the owner of https://killedbygoogle.com/ bankrupt because of constantly having to upgrade the hosting plan to accommodate all the dead Google projects lol.
Also, Liam makes a good point about relying on one provider for a lot of things. While it is convenient having one account but the risk of losing everything is too high. At the very least moving your email to a different provider might be good enough since email is used as a recovery method for most services so you could also lose access to other non-Google accounts if Google decides to terminate your account.
6 Likes, Who?
I wonder what's the story behind this.
Google not replying to a medium-sized fish in the pond (who is no less developing for their thirsty-for-good-news-service) for three weeks straight is slightly concerning.
I'm just glad I never relied too much on Google services to begin with - other than Chrome, but that would definitely be replaceable. And the App Store, obviously, but I never spend money there, anyway.
Lucky me, I guess!
E-mail wise, I thankfully host my own (or, well, pay a provider to host it for me). It's just more professional if you have your own email domain ;)
Video-wise I try to get into a habit to look at odysee.com first before I have to go to YouTube since most people I follow are unfortunately not on both.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 8 February 2021 at 11:17 am UTC
Google not replying to a medium-sized fish in the pond (who is no less developing for their thirsty-for-good-news-service) for three weeks straight is slightly concerning.
I'm just glad I never relied too much on Google services to begin with - other than Chrome, but that would definitely be replaceable. And the App Store, obviously, but I never spend money there, anyway.
Lucky me, I guess!
E-mail wise, I thankfully host my own (or, well, pay a provider to host it for me). It's just more professional if you have your own email domain ;)
Video-wise I try to get into a habit to look at odysee.com first before I have to go to YouTube since most people I follow are unfortunately not on both.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 8 February 2021 at 11:17 am UTC
3 Likes, Who?
We have reached the point where losing your account on Google, Amazon, Facebook or whatever can ruin your life. Tell me how that is not worrisome.
8 Likes, Who?
E-mail wise, I thankfully host my own (or, well, pay a provider to host it for me)
Yes, and then Google just randomly throws half the mails you send to people with gmail accounts into their spam folder, where the recipients never see them...
1 Likes, Who?
Yes, and then Google just randomly throws half the mails you send to people with gmail accounts into their spam folder, where the recipients never see them...Didn't happen to me a single time in 10+ years.
The provider is https://www.df.eu/int/ and the email hosting is part of a whole package including webserver, etc. It's actually a German provider, back from when I still lived in Germany.
I don't really run a webserver where I got some PHP service running with my self-signed certificate or anything like that, if that's what you thought
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 8 February 2021 at 11:53 am UTC
0 Likes
For those interested in alternatives, Framasoft in France runs a whole bunch of Google-free services, all of which you can also host yourself.
Last edited by psy-q on 8 February 2021 at 11:56 am UTC
Last edited by psy-q on 8 February 2021 at 11:56 am UTC
5 Likes, Who?
A week ago, I was in a Zoom call with some academicians from Germany; at the end of the call they repeatedly apologised that they had to put presentations and other materials on Google Drive which of course require a Google account. It sounded a bit exaggeration to me but it looks like those people are right to be worried. You may or may not break TOS in another service of Google, then entirely unrelated service might delete your entire academic storage. Nightmare...
5 Likes, Who?
Good to see all the degoogling advocates here 
+1 for Protonmail. I'd like to add https://disroot.org/ and https://tutanota.com/ to the list of the many smaller European alternatives to big tech.
+1 for Protonmail. I'd like to add https://disroot.org/ and https://tutanota.com/ to the list of the many smaller European alternatives to big tech.
9 Likes, Who?
It's a shocking reminder that many of us (myself included) rely too heavily one on single provider for multiple things.
Another reason not to push stadia, google is not our friend. If they were only a big company after money it would be one thing, but the even push politics.
It's good to see the world is starting to wake up and "degoogling" (while we're at it might I also suggest to "defacebook", "detwitter", "deamazon", "deapple" and "demicrosoft").
14 Likes, Who?
A week ago, I was in a Zoom call with some academicians from Germany
Speaking of relaying heavily on a single provider, it still cringes and scares me to see how quickly Zoom became the go to platform for video conferences.
Good to see all the degoogling advocates here
+1 for Protonmail. I'd like to add https://disroot.org/ and https://tutanota.com/ to the list of the many smaller European alternatives to big tech.
Don't forget Posteo
5 Likes, Who?
I'd still wait for the whole story indeed. I'm not surprised though, crap like this does happen.
Two years ago I was myself locked out of my Google Account for I dunno...about a week maybe?
I've sent them a email basically saying "wtf google?", and they promptly restored it without giving any explanation.
Last edited by dubigrasu on 8 February 2021 at 2:10 pm UTC
Two years ago I was myself locked out of my Google Account for I dunno...about a week maybe?
I've sent them a email basically saying "wtf google?", and they promptly restored it without giving any explanation.
Last edited by dubigrasu on 8 February 2021 at 2:10 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
For those interested in alternatives, Framasoft in France runs a whole bunch of Google-free services, all of which you can also host yourself.
Well, they kind of stopped because the service was originally created to encourage self-hosting, and people were just using their services.
Instead, find a place with a relatively stable internet connection and electricity. Optionally buy a domain name (€ 3-10 depending on the domain). Find an old computer lying around (laptops are nice as they have a battery, and use less power: about 10€/year where I live) and install yunohost on it. Pick the services you need. Enjoy. You can share the services (and costs) with your friends and family, it doesn't take that much maintenance, and you'll be doing a favor to your community.
Having your own domain name is quite liberating, as it allows you to switch providers (be it google, protonmail, another, your private VPS or your own server) if you want to. But self-hosting isn't much harder, and a domain name is one of the most expensive parts.
See this list for a few other services you can host: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
5 Likes, Who?
OneSubtractOne Feb 8, 2021
This isn't the first time Google has done this weird lock entire accounts thing.
A few years ago they did it to a large number of markiplier fans, because he asked them to spam happy or sad faces in his chat to vote for something or other. When they did as asked, they were banned. Not just from youtube, or from youtube chat, but from the entire google ecosystem. With the same results. Literally just locked out and that was the end of it.
I know a good chunk eventually got reinstated, after Mark made a big deal about it. I don't know if they ever got all of them back. I'm pretty sure google never said a word about it. Just said they were looking into the situation, eventually reinstated some of the accounts, and then just carried on googling.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is a horrible idea. Especially if that basket is run by a whole bunch of people who REALLY don't care about your eggs, so long as MOST eggs are okay.
A few years ago they did it to a large number of markiplier fans, because he asked them to spam happy or sad faces in his chat to vote for something or other. When they did as asked, they were banned. Not just from youtube, or from youtube chat, but from the entire google ecosystem. With the same results. Literally just locked out and that was the end of it.
I know a good chunk eventually got reinstated, after Mark made a big deal about it. I don't know if they ever got all of them back. I'm pretty sure google never said a word about it. Just said they were looking into the situation, eventually reinstated some of the accounts, and then just carried on googling.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is a horrible idea. Especially if that basket is run by a whole bunch of people who REALLY don't care about your eggs, so long as MOST eggs are okay.
4 Likes, Who?
Arehandoro Feb 8, 2021
Email: https://www.posteo.de
Nextcloud: https://www.thegood.cloud
Article vault: https://www.wallabag.it
Password manager: https://bitwarden.com
Comms: https://www.matrix.org (Any client will do, the official is https://element.io/get-started)
Video-conferencing: https://meet.jit.si
External Backups: https://backblaze.com
All of them can be self-hosted too, except Backblaze, but if you lack the time, technical skills, money or simply don't want to worry about backups, configs, etc the above are my favourite providers.
Edit: Posteo itself can't be self-hosted, but a mail server is easily hosted in a VPS. For those cases, https://mailcow.email/ is a very good out-the-box solution. They also provide it as a service.
Last edited by Arehandoro on 8 February 2021 at 2:46 pm UTC
Nextcloud: https://www.thegood.cloud
Article vault: https://www.wallabag.it
Password manager: https://bitwarden.com
Comms: https://www.matrix.org (Any client will do, the official is https://element.io/get-started)
Video-conferencing: https://meet.jit.si
External Backups: https://backblaze.com
All of them can be self-hosted too, except Backblaze, but if you lack the time, technical skills, money or simply don't want to worry about backups, configs, etc the above are my favourite providers.
Edit: Posteo itself can't be self-hosted, but a mail server is easily hosted in a VPS. For those cases, https://mailcow.email/ is a very good out-the-box solution. They also provide it as a service.
Last edited by Arehandoro on 8 February 2021 at 2:46 pm UTC
5 Likes, Who?
Arehandoro Feb 8, 2021
E-mail wise, I thankfully host my own (or, well, pay a provider to host it for me)
Yes, and then Google just randomly throws half the mails you send to people with gmail accounts into their spam folder, where the recipients never see them...
I have a VPS in Digitalocean running a mail server for over 3 years and didn't really have an issue with that. There is, https://postmaster.google.com where a domain can be included so Gmail validates the authenticity of said domain. With that in place, everything goes to normal inbox.
Having said that, using a provider like some mentioned in the post is more reliable, painless and in most cases cheaper too.
1 Likes, Who?
Everyone knows the level of engineers at Google. And Stadia (and most of Google dead projects) actually worked technically. Those failures, from an external perspective at least, look like a pure management issue.
I mean, literally every influencer and journalist out there warned that Stadia business model was flawed when it was announced. Even if management was borrowed from non gaming world and just did a mistake because of lack of knowledge of their business, by that time were they smart they would have take notice. But no.
Also, since the product is technically valid, I don't understand why they are killing it. Surely they complicated things a lot for themselves but it's not like that VG streaming market is settled. The competition now is really only started.
I can't help though, a part of me still hopes that videogame streaming dies horribly. Even though as an engineer I'm aware that it's just the "natural" evolution of things and it cannot be stopped.
I mean, literally every influencer and journalist out there warned that Stadia business model was flawed when it was announced. Even if management was borrowed from non gaming world and just did a mistake because of lack of knowledge of their business, by that time were they smart they would have take notice. But no.
Also, since the product is technically valid, I don't understand why they are killing it. Surely they complicated things a lot for themselves but it's not like that VG streaming market is settled. The competition now is really only started.
I can't help though, a part of me still hopes that videogame streaming dies horribly. Even though as an engineer I'm aware that it's just the "natural" evolution of things and it cannot be stopped.
0 Likes
Also, since the product is technically valid, I don't understand why they are killing it.That's just Google for you...
Technically valid? Yes.
Can be fixed to be otherwise valid as well? Yes.
Is actually used by people? Yes.
Was an immediate great success and is on a trajectory to the moon? No - cancel it!
Stadia still has yet to be cancelled, of course, but I don't know many people who are very optimistic about it. Which might turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 8 February 2021 at 3:25 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
EagleDelta Feb 8, 2021
So, to be fair to Google, after reading about the Sony Music lawsuit against Cox Communications over Cox not enforcing its DMCA policy, I can't blame Google for how they handle this. The whole of how DMCA works is complete crap. Basically, as was seen in the lawsuit against Cox (who is appealing), they didn't completely enforce their DMCA policy against their customers and as such lost the immunity that the DMCA gives them. As such, a Jury found Cox liable for Music piracy by their customers and, as of now, Sony Music has been awarded 1 billion dollars in damages that Cox must pay.
Basically, the way it's written, you either submit to crappy DMCA requests or you face huge liabilities :facepalm:.
Basically, the way it's written, you either submit to crappy DMCA requests or you face huge liabilities :facepalm:.
1 Likes, Who?
There is nothing friendly about google. Behind their clown colors skulks a very wealthy --- and very powerful --- data-mining concern. Whatever they do, they do to collect and collate and profit from people's data. I've only ever used their search engine, and that stopped in 2004 when I first found Scroogle.
Anecdotes and articles like Liam's here are why I've been working for the past month or so climbing a steep learning curve setting up my first smart phone (yes, really), an old Note 4 given me by my father-in-law.
I've hidden all of the google, Samsung, and Verizon software that I couldn't remove or disable, and installed replacement goodies from F-droid, including using the DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser, Bitwarden password manager, and Tutamail (because they have a desktop client).
Whatever exclusively-Play Store app I want (Steam's app, for example), I'll get via Aurora Store, an anonymizing Play Store client. I'm currently looking into which smart phone I'll buy to be my daily driver based upon which custom ROM I can use; LineageOS or Resurrection Remix being the most likely options).
I feel for Sprinks, I really do. His ordeal is one of my worst nightmares. I can never forget that everything digital is as ephemeral a soap-bubble.
Last edited by Nanobang on 8 February 2021 at 3:48 pm UTC
Anecdotes and articles like Liam's here are why I've been working for the past month or so climbing a steep learning curve setting up my first smart phone (yes, really), an old Note 4 given me by my father-in-law.
I've hidden all of the google, Samsung, and Verizon software that I couldn't remove or disable, and installed replacement goodies from F-droid, including using the DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser, Bitwarden password manager, and Tutamail (because they have a desktop client).
Whatever exclusively-Play Store app I want (Steam's app, for example), I'll get via Aurora Store, an anonymizing Play Store client. I'm currently looking into which smart phone I'll buy to be my daily driver based upon which custom ROM I can use; LineageOS or Resurrection Remix being the most likely options).
I feel for Sprinks, I really do. His ordeal is one of my worst nightmares. I can never forget that everything digital is as ephemeral a soap-bubble.
Last edited by Nanobang on 8 February 2021 at 3:48 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
See more from me