Google Stadia Shifts Focus, Cancels Plans to Develop Games

Google has announced that it will no longer be investing in the creation of exclusive titles for Stadia, it’s late 2019 game streaming platform.

This move comes as a surprise as up until a few months ago, Google was poised to be ‘in it for the long haul’ with plans set until 2023. But now, the tech giant is shutting down its in-house studios to cut down on the high costs involved in game creation.

Focusing on Stadia’s future as a platform, and winding down SG&E : https://t.co/HsZUcGXbtZ
— Stadia (@GoogleStadia) February 1, 2021

Via a blog post on Stadia’s official page, Phil Harrison, VP, and General Manager said,

“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.”
Phil Harrison, VP and General Manager

The company, however, assured that it will continue working with third-party developers to bring more titles to the platform. According to Harrison, Google believes working with developers and publishers to bring third-party games to the platform is the “best path to building Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business.”

This development spells badly for the 150 developers that were hired exclusively for Stadia’s Los Angeles and Montreal based studios. Google has outlined that it will try to find alternate positions for these developers.

Additionally, industry veteran Jade Raymond, best known for creating Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise, has also left the company. What this means for the in-development exclusive titles from Harmonix, Supermassive Games, and Uppercut Games is unknown.

About Stadia

Stadia is a cloud gaming service developed and operated by Google. It is advertised to be capable of streaming video games to players up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. Its subscription bundle, Stadia Pro, retails at $9.99 per month, with access to many AAA titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Hitman, Cyberpunk 2077, and more.