Google Stadium, the late 2019 streaming platform that promised to revolutionize gaming by allowing users to stream games without having to own a powerful computer or console, is changing course, to get out of the game business and will now offer its platform directly to game publishers along with the presentation of Stadia Pro to the public.
The company is announce the news todayhowever Kotaku started talking last week from sources close to Stadia that Google’s service is heading for a major change. One source from the game industry tells Kotaku that Google is canceling several projects, basically any games planned for a release outside a 2021 window, even though they believed games close to release would still appear. Today brings a little explanation.
Google will close its two game studios, located in Montreal and Los Angeles. None of them have released games yet. The closure will affect about 150 developers, said one source familiar with Stadia operations. The company says it will try to find the developers new roles at Google.
Jade Raymond, the veteran producer who helped build Assassin’s Creed for Ubisoft and moved to EA a few years ago before leaving to run game creation at Stadia, leaving the company, according to Google.
Google will continue to operate the $ 10 monthly Stadia Games service and its Stadia Pro service. It is unclear how many, if any, exclusive games will still come to service, although the company has indicated that it can still sign up for new games and bring in more third-party releases. platform closed. It will still seem to many people like a sign of the plan to consolidate Stadia as a bona fide competitor of platforms.
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The company plans to offer its Stadia technology to publishers, which will enable Stadia to become the streaming technology for other video game businesses. Google’s head of Stadia operations, Phil Harrison, consulting executive, will focus on pursuing these new partnerships.
‘WI see an important opportunity to work with partners looking for a game solution, all built on Stadia’s advanced technical infrastructure and platform tools, ”Harrison wrote in a blog post today. ‘We believe this is the best way to build Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry. ”
Google initially offered Stadia in a bundle of $ 129 Founder’s Edition, which includes a custom controller, a Chromecast Ultra (used to stream games from Google’s servers to a TV), and a three-month Stadia Pro, a subscription service that provides access to certain games included.
Google promote some exciting features, including the ability to instantly let players take control of a live Stadia game and to share games of games, but many of them was not available at launch and remained in testing phases.
Perhaps the best moments of the service were that the ports of third parties displayed the strength of the cloud game model, in which a game can work well on almost any device with a screen and a strong internet connection. Ubisoft games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey ran well on Stadia. Destiny 2With Stadia support, players of that game can drop in for an extra game or search from their phone or laptop when they were far away from their usual game equipment. When Cyberpunk 2077 faltered over all the others in December, it’s going pretty well at Stadia.
Stadia still struggled to get its feet wet, without offering an all-you-can-play service and also not offering exclusive games. Meanwhile, Microsoft has boosted its xCloud cloud gaming service as part of its Game Pass Ultimate bundle, and Stadia has become less and less attractive to the kind of hardcore gamer who can create a new gaming service.
Google was apparently built for the future with the creation of first party studios and a leadership team made up of skilled studio heads and creative directors, but the efforts were not enough to ward off the fate that many feared when they have not heard of this Google initiative: that it will lose support from within before it has enough time to realize its potential.
Stages are not quite finished. The Stadia technology can still succeed. According to many accounts, Stadia has an excellent game. But as a game maker, it looks like Google has packed it. One source familiar with Stadia’s first-party operations said he names another technology giant wide made known failed to create video games: “Google was a terrible place to make games. Imagine Amazon, but it’s not enough. ”