Things have not been going well for Google’s cloud based Stadia gaming platform. The platform made a bad debut with a limited game selection and lackluster systems. Earlier this year, Google closed the Stadia game studios, and as a result, Jade Raymond, the studio’s president left the company. Afterwards, Stadia’s vice president, John Justice, and a few other key figures left Google to join Raymond’s new gaming studio. Despite all of this, Google seems to continue its support for the platform.
Developer marketing lead Nate Ahearn said that Stadia is “alive and well”, in an interview with GamesIndustry. He also added that, more than 100 new games will be released on the platform this year. Stadia is currently led by Dov Zimring, a senior leader in product development for both Project Stream and Google Stadia.
The Stadia Makers program, which supports indie game makers to develop games for Stadia, seems to continue without any problems. However, we cannot say that the program has had a definite positive impact so far. Despite the loss of Stadia game studios, Ahearn stated that the Makers program does not exist to help fill that loss.
Ahearn said independent studios are still enrolling in the program. Five independent games have already been released for Stadia through the program, and over 20 more games are in development.
But Stadia is continuing to have some major issues as it continues to expand its library of games. For example, updates for the Stadia version of Outriders lagged far behind PC and console updates. Also, a bug in Savage Planet could not be fixed for a long time due to the shutdown of their internal studios.
So frankly I am still wondering how this platform is still alive. Remember, a basic feature like a search bar was added just a few months ago. Nevertheless, we will keep you updated on Stadia. Stay tuned!
