Google Stadia, the tech giant's game-streaming service, will no longer develop its own titles internally, it has announced.
Both the Montreal and LA studios have been closed down, and Stadia will only support third-party titles henceforth.
Google Shutters Internal Stadia Studios, Focused On Third-Party Titles
Google VP and Stadia GM Phil Harrison explained that the move should help with Stadia's sustainability.
“We believe this is the best path to building Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry,” he said.
“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.”
Industry veteran Jade Raymond will also be leaving the company. One of the key creatives behind the Assassin's Creed franchise, Raymond was intended to spearhead Google's original content plan.
It'll be interesting to see if this leads to alterations in Google's business plan for Stadia.
The company offers a Pro subscription to unlock many of the platform's features, but also charges full-price for games that players don't really have any ownership of if the servers go down.
Considering Google's penchant for killing products that don't hit the ground running, Stadia may be living on borrowed time.
It's also worth remembering that many of the functions and features of the platform are yet to be rolled out, despite being announced at Stadia's reveal in 2019.