Google recently killed its only internal Stadia games development studio, Stadia Games and Entertainment (SG&E), after building the studio for just two years. In an industry where even established game studios take several years to ship a product, it was a breathtaking fast pace to build and tear down a game development studio. Kotaku contacted some of the more than 150 staff members fired from the Google studio, and they paint a picture of a dysfunctional work environment plagued by dishonest communication and mismanagement.
According to the report, developers in the studio were ‘shocked’ by the sudden halt, as Phil Harrison, the chief executive of the game industry, Phil Harrison, had told the group only a week earlier.[SG&E] has made great strides in building a diverse and talented team and establishing a strong range of exclusive games for Stadia. ‘The one-week flip-flop was’ part of a clear pattern of Stadia leadership that was not honest and prior with the company’s developers ‘, according to Kotaku, adding that many developers’ their lives and careers have improved to join the team. ‘
According to the report, Stadia’s developers found out about the closure of the studio at “almost the same time as everyone else.” Stadia’s developers had to wait three days before Harrison was available for a Q&A conference, describing the report as ‘controversial’. The most icy line in the report describes Harrison’s response to a question about why the Studio ‘made great progress’ one week and then fired the next time:’ To a question that changed from the previous week, Harrison admits that there was nothing and those on the call: “We knew.”
Who runs a game studio for just two years?
One quote from Kotaku’s source begs the same question as we ask ourselves: why did Google start a game studio without a solid plan to keep it going long enough to make a game? “If you started this studio and hired a hundred or so people, no one would just start it in a year or so, would you?” asked a source. “You can not make a match in that time … We had multi-year insurance, and now not.”
In his official statement announcing the strike of SG&E, Harrison cited costs as the primary reason for the murder of the studio, saying: “Creating the best first-class games takes many years and significant investment. , and the cost goes up exponentially. “It’s hard to imagine Google’s army executives not correctly calculating the cost of a development team, so the most volatile input here is the amount of money Stadia draws monthly.
Google does not publicly share how good (or bad) things are with Stadia, but the blog post states that Google is looking for ‘the best way to build Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business’, which is strong indicates that Stadia is currently not a sustainable business. The post details what sounds like a pretty strong change in strategy, turning from the direct-to-consumer game console business, and more to being a technology provider for gambling businesses.
If Stadia were ever to be successful, it looks like it should have happened in the last few months. The pandemic is making games more popular than ever, and everyone’s sales are across the boards. Stages were also one of the best systems to play the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 to, especially since the next options are the next generation consoles that are constantly sold out. If Google does not succeed now, it is difficult to suggest a better opportunity for the service.
As a streaming service, if Stadia ever closes, customers will lose access to all their games, so to buy a game on Stadia, there must be some degree of confidence that the service will stay. Stories of mismanagement like this, Google’s extensive history of service killings and the other constant negative press make the service hard to believe.