About 8 hours ago I wrote a post bemoaning Google’s fumble out of the gate with Stadia invite codes. I was already not much of a fan of the whole invite system, but the fact that I’d plunked down my money for the Founders Edition immediately following the very first Stadia Connect meant I expected to be at least granted the opportunity to try Stadia as soon as it was publicly released. Instead, I was left hanging along with countless other users for the afternoon, waiting on an invite code that wouldn’t come for quite some time.
In the grand scheme of things, a handful of hours isn’t the end of the world. I’ve waited this long, after all, so a bit longer really isn’t going to hurt anything. I suppose the issue was in the fact that Google had quite confidently stated that invite codes would be sent out upon the user’s Founders Edition shipping out, starting at noon today. For those of us who already had the hardware in hand, the letdown of not getting to do anything with it was bad, but the lack of real response from Google that anything was wrong was really the worst part.
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Thankfully, Google has finally responded and the issue looks to be rectified. Over at 9to5 Google, a statement has been issued by Google addressing the problems that occurred earlier today that made invite codes go out in the wrong order:
We’re sorry for the delayed responses. We’ve identified an issue where a small fraction of Stadia access codes were sent out of order. That has been addressed. We’ve continued to roll out codes in the sequence in which we received your pre-order. We look forward to seeing you on Stadia.
Again, this isn’t a massive deal in the end, but delaying Founders access to Stadia means some of these early adopters won’t be able to snag their unique, desired gamer tag. I was able to get mine and I’m glad, but I guarantee that wasn’t the case for many, and that privilege is one of the reasons people ordered the Founders Edition early.
We’re putting Stadia through the paces and will report back tomorrow, but it is safe to say that the tough early reviews, shipping issues, and now this invite code snafu will all serve to give the Stadia launch an official black eye. I’m still very hopeful that Google will get the kinks ironed out over the next week and this protracted Beta test we’re calling Founders Edition will, in the end, lead to a rock-solid gaming experience for all those who will follow in the Founders’ footsteps.
