Google announces they are winding down first-party game development for
Stadia to concentrate on supporting third-party titles on the streaming game
service. They say that Jade Raymond will be leaving the company less than a year
after
signing
on to head up the Stadia Games and Entertainment studio in Playa Vista,
California. According to
Kotaku the closure will affect around 150 developers. Here's part of the
statement:
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. With the increased focus on using our technology
platform for industry partners, Jade Raymond has decided to leave Google to
pursue other opportunities. We greatly appreciate Jade's contribution to Stadia
and wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors. Over the coming months,
most of the SG&E team will be moving on to new roles. We’re committed to working
with this talented team to find new roles and support them.
What does this mean if you're a current or future Stadia gamer? You can continue
playing all your games on Stadia and Stadia Pro, and we’ll continue to bring new
titles from third parties to the platform. We’re committed to the future of
cloud gaming, and will continue to do our part to drive this industry forward.
Our goal remains focused on creating the best possible platform for gamers and
technology for our partners, bringing these experiences to life for people
everywhere.