Well, that was quick.
Google is shutting down its in-house game development studios that had been working on games for Google Stadia. Vice president and GM of Stadia Phil Harrison announced the news via a blog post, confirming that Stadia Games and Entertainment will be no more.
Harrison wrote:
Creating best-in-class games from the ground up takes many years and significant investment, and the cost is going up exponentially. Given our focus on building on the proven technology of Stadia as well as deepening our business partnerships, we’ve decided that we will not be investing further in bringing exclusive content from our internal development team SG&E, beyond any near-term planned games.
According to Kotaku, this means that any Google Stadia-exclusive games set for a release window beyond 2021 has been cancelled and thrown out completely. Google will shut down its two game studios in Montreal and Los Angeles, which will impact around 150 developers - though the company says that it will try to give them new roles within Google. Neither studio had released any games yet.
Harrison also confirmed that Stadia Games and Entertainment’s vice president Jade Raymond was leaving Google due to the changes. Raymond had previously produced the first few Assassin’s Creed games for Ubisoft, before leaving for Electronic Arts to form Star Wars: Squadrons developer Motive Studios. In 2019, she had joined Google to create exclusive games and content for Stadia, but will now depart before seeing any of that content released.
So, what’s next for Stadia? For now, Harrison assures Stadia owners that Google will, “continue to invest in Stadia and its underlying platform to provide the best cloud gaming experience for our partners and the gaming community.” In 2021, Google plans to help game developers and publishers use Stadia’s game-streaming technology and, “deliver games directly to their players.”
Harrison writes:
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.
The writing has been on the wall for Google Stadia for quite some time now. Although the streaming platform offered gameplay at up to 4K resolution and 60fps with HDR, its limited availability and widespread reports of early lag and connectivity issues made it fade from mainstream consciousness quickly. In April 2020, Google made Stadia free for anyone with a Gmail account. In June 2020, Google allowed Android users to try Stadia for free.
Unfortunately, Google Stadia still isn’t available in Singapore. Here’s everything you need to know about the platform.
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