Google lays off Stadia first-party developers
What’s happening over at Google?
Bad news for Stadia, Google’s streaming-based video game console, as Google announced in a blog post today that they are shuttering their internal development team, without having produced a single piece of content.
“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” the statement reads.
Yikes.
It’s unclear what this means long-term for Stadia, but it’s not a good look, especially given the brand behind it. Being unable to produce first-party content means there is little to differentiate Stadia from other competitors, defeating much of the purpose, despite the novel approach to cloud gaming. Coupled with the intense data usage required to play smoothly (up to 20GB an hour!) and it’s hard to justify buying into the Stadia ecosystem.
Canadian game producer Jade Raymond, best known for her work on the Assassin’s Creed franchise, has left the company, after a stint that’s less than two years in the making.
“We greatly appreciate Jade’s contribution to Stadia and wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors” adds Google.
Only time will tell if Stadia will be able to compete long-term, or if it will fade into obscurity like other failed systems, such as the much maligned Ouya. Remember that? Anyone?
