I don’t think 3rd world countries would have the Internet infrastructure for wide spread adoption of cloud gaming. Also it’s not like they were giving the games away, those were full-price titles on stadia.

Even if there was a demand for something like this you want to deploy you product first in countries with as much disposable income as possible. If people can’t afford the prices how are you going to make money? (not just in the first few years, but ever) In the end someone has to pay for the servers and GPUs.

People are not saying it wasn’t functional. Just not financially viable.