Google Stadia Shuts Down Internal Studios, Changing Business Focus

[THE 101]

Google Stadia, the late 2019 streaming platform that promised to revolutionize gaming by letting users stream games without needing to own a powerful PC or console, is altering course, getting out of the game-making business and will now offer its platform directly to game publishers alongside offering Stadia Pro to the public.

The company is announcing the news today, though Kotaku began to hear rumblings from sources close to Stadia last week that Google’s service was heading for a major change. One games industry source told Kotaku that Google was canceling multiple projects, basically any games slated for release beyond a specific 2021 window, though they believed games close to release would still come out. Today brings some clarification.

Google will close its two game studios, located in Montreal and Los Angeles. That closure will impact around 150 developers, one source familiar with Stadia operations said. The company says it will try to find those developers new roles at Google.

Jade Raymond, the veteran producer who helped build Assassin’s Creed for Ubisoft and moved on to EA several years ago before leaving to run game creation at Stadia, is exiting the company, according to Google.

Google will continue to operate the Stadia gaming service and its $10 monthly Stadia Pro service. It’s unclear how many, if any, exclusive games will still come to the service, though the company has indicated that it can still sign new games. It nevertheless will look to many like a draw down of the plan to have Stadia run as a bona fide competitor to console platforms.

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The company plans to begin offering its Stadia tech to publishers, opening up the possibility for Stadia to become the streaming tech for other video game companies. Google’s head of Stadia operations, longtime console executive Phil Harrison, will focus on pursuing these new partnerships.

Google initially offered Stadia in a $129 Founder’s Edition bundle, which included a custom controller, a Chromecast Ultra (used for streaming games from Google’s servers to a TV), and three months of Stadia Pro, a subscription service that granted access to certain games.

Google promoted some exciting features, including the ability to let players pass control of a livestreamed Stadia game on the fly and to share savestates of games, but many of them weren’t available at launch and remained in testing phases.

The service’s best moments may have been when its third-party ports showed off the strength of the cloud gaming model, in which a game can run well on just about any device with a screen and a strong internet connection. Ubisoft games such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey ran well on Stadia. Destiny 2's Stadia support let players of that game drop in for an extra match or quest from their phone or laptop when they were far from their regular gaming gear. When Cyberpunk 2077 was faltering on everything else in December, it was running quite well on Stadia.

Still, without offering an all-you-can-play service nor offering killer exclusive games, Stadia struggled to get its footing. Meanwhile, Microsoft ramped up its xCloud cloud gaming service as part of its Game Pass Ultimate bundle, and Stadia became less and less alluring to the kind of hardcore gamer who can build buzz for a new gaming service.

Google seemingly built for the future with the creation of first-party studios and a leadership team consisting of accomplished studio heads and creative directors, but those efforts weren’t enough to stave off the fate many people feared when hearing about this Google initiative: that it would lose support from within before it got ample time to realize its potential.

Stadia isn’t quite done. The Stadia tech could still succeed. By many accounts, Stadia runs games great. But as a game-maker, Google appears to have packed it in. Said one source familiar with Stadia’s first-party operations, citing another tech giant’s widely publicized failure to create video games: “Google was a terrible place to make games. Imagine Amazon, but under-resourced.”

Google Stadia Shuts Down Internal Studios, Changing Business Focus

It's over. But did it ever really begin?

 

[Kingshango]

 

[Anti-Anime]

the gamers have spoken. hardware wins again.

with that service shyt

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

Dj play me out...

 

[levitate]

Like every other Google project...run it for a few months, then kill it.

At this point if you fukk with Google anything you’re pouring jelly on yourself.

 

[SmallWars]

Who the fukk didn't see this coming?

 

[DaSk8D00D]

They’re closing their “exclusive” game studios (which quite frankly haven’t done or shown shyt) but still keeping the tech alive. Wouldn’t be surprised if they try to license out the streaming tech/infrastructure to developers somehow.

 

[Easy-E]

They got such a bump from Cyberpunk running like shyt on consoles and coming out a day before.

I even bought one more other game on Stadia.

They rightfully did something right with an oppurtrunities.

It's an okay platform, but, needs way more work than you'd know not having played it.

 

[MarcP]

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

They’re closing their “exclusive” game studios (which quite frankly haven’t done or shown shyt) but still keeping the tech alive. Wouldn’t be surprised if they try to license out the streaming tech/infrastructure to developers somehow.

If they were smart they’d just work out a deal with microsoft and gamepass

 

[xXMASHERXx]

Google Stadia Shuts Down Internal Studios, Changing Business Focus

It's over. But did it ever really begin?

Leave it to Google to do Google things

 

[ORDER_66]

No more games as a service a$$holes / MMOS !!!

 

[The Intergalactic Koala]

Well Goddamn, just went they were giving out Stadia bundles like it was water.

Bottom line:

DO NOT SUPPORT GOOGLE PRODUCTS OTHER THAN CHROMEBOOKS AND THEIR shytTY BROWSER.

 

[Pressure]

They’re closing their “exclusive” game studios (which quite frankly haven’t done or shown shyt) but still keeping the tech alive. Wouldn’t be surprised if they try to license out the streaming tech/infrastructure to developers somehow.

Didn't they just announce a partnership with LG this weekend?

 

[CodeKansas]