author: Adrian Piotrowski
Google Stadia Shuts Down In-house Studios to Pursue Other Goals
Google has closed its two studios in Montreal and Los Angeles. Stadia will continue to offer streaming of games from other publishers, but will no longer receive any original productions, other than those already in development.
Today a message from Phil Harrison, vice president and general manager responsible for the video games division and Google Stadia project, appeared on Google blog. As we can read in it, due to rising costs, the company has decided not to invest in the further development of the Stadia Games and Entertainment team. This means that Google will not develop any more exclusive games for its platform , except for those that are close to completion. Furthermore, the tech giant has closed its two studios in Montreal and Los Angeles. They numbered 150 employees, but most of them were promised new jobs with the company. Harrison is optimistic about Stadia's performance so far, but said he will focus on other things for now.
"We launched Stadia with the goal of making your favorite games instantly available wherever you want to play them. With the recent successful launch of Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia, gameplay on all types of devices, including iOS [...] it’s clear that Stadia’s technology has been proven and works at scale. Having games streamed to any screen is the future of this industry, and we’ll continue to invest in Stadia and its underlying platform to provide the best cloud gaming experience for our partners and the gaming community. [...] We believe this is the best path to building Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry."
When Google Stadia launched in November 2019, it was not without problems. However, many reviews, even the negative ones, pointed out that the service has a lot of potential hidden under many bugs or shortcomings. The giant, undeterred by the rough launch, announced that Stadia will not only use games from thiord-party companies, but also receive its own, original works. The team of developers was headed by Jade Raymond, the producer responsible, among others, for the first installments of Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs. According to Harrison, she is no longer an employee of Google .
The failure of the IT giant to create its own games resembles the situation with which another leading representative of the industry - Amazon - had to face. Less than 3 years ago, its hyped game Breakaway was canceled. According to one former employee, who is quoted by the Kotaku:
“Google was a terrible place to make games. Imagine Amazon, but under-resourced.”