Some changes are coming to Google Stadia. First today Google announced that they will be closing down their two game studios which are located in Montreal and Los Angeles. Thus taking Google out of the Stadia exclusive game developing business, and instead turning to other partners to make games for the Stadia. The closures will be impacting around 150 developers that the company says will be put into other roles at Google. In a blog post by GM and VP of Google Phil Harrison he stated.
“In 2021, we’re expanding our efforts to help game developers and publishers take advantage of our platform technology and deliver games directly to their players. We see an important opportunity to work with partners seeking a gaming solution all built on Stadia’s advanced technical infrastructure and platform tools. We believe this is the best path to building Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry.“
From that statement it does appear that Google does plan to continue to push Stadia forward just not with their own exclusive titles developed under their own company. The post also acknowledged what will be happening currently with Stadia. Saying that people will be able to continue playing all owned games on Stadia/Stadia Pro and that the company plans to bring new titles from third parties to the platform. In all it seems that Google has not given up on their project but just looking at other ways of pushing out their tech to developers out there. It should be interesting to see what groups decide to work with Google on this front, especially after the rocky start that Google had at the launch of Stadia.
FrankenCulture 