Google announced earlier this year that it was shutting down game development, and closing its game development division, Stadia Games & Entertainment. Of course, this does not mean that Stadia was also shot, in fact, the media mogul was only arguing that he took this step because he wanted to develop the service, which has received a lot of criticism and is already buried by some, in the quality, identification of the existing gaming platform On the cloud. At the same time, the Google Marketing Officer emphasized that we don’t have to give up the 100 games we previously promised us.
Marketing Director Nate Ahern gave an interview to GamesIndustry.biz-nek About it and he said that Stadia would like to thank you very well, it’s good, it works, all distributed by many Apple vs. Epic for each case, and it remains what was announced earlier this year that more than 100 games will be released on the platform in 2021. Ahearn understands, of course, that there are many skeptics, but to let them know that the Stadia Makers program will continue to grow this year. , Google has teamed up with major game publishers such as Capcom, Electronic Arts, Square Enix, or Ubisoft.
Most recently, Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 7, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order were released on Stadia, and two new features were also introduced (such as the search bar). Support for independent games has also not stopped. Google has adopted a number of Unity engine games under the Stadia Makers program, 5 of which have already been completed, and more than 20 of them are still in development.
Nate Ahern also indicated that Google doesn’t want to enter into very exclusive agreements either, because it wants to reach the widest possible player base, and exclusive agreements will only restrict that. Also in the case of supported indie games, the primary goal is to deliver them to the largest possible number of users.
GamesIndustry.biz reporter also turned the conversation into a sensitive topic regarding the number of users Google Earth can have. Nate Ahern, of course, gave a diplomatic response, which means he likened the service more to virtual reality, rather than going into detail. According to him, cloud-based games are now pretty much where VR was in the beginning: relatively few have discovered it for themselves.
So we have to wait for the big breakthrough for now, but it will also come, because as more and more people start buying virtual reality kits, players will catch up with cloud games as well. Ahern says Google is currently playing a “pioneering” role and has the resources to stay that way in the future. On the other hand, players rely heavily on traditional gaming platforms, such as consoles (and computers), but this will change, and innovation will triumph and become the standard.
We’ll see the fate of Stadia in the future! In any case, several promising projects have fallen victim to this transformation, including the horror game Kojima Hideo.
