“Hey Stadia, just like last week, huh?”
Things haven’t been great for Google’s Stadia game streaming service. The year has already seen the shuttering of their development studios to disastrous results, as well as the departure of Jade Raymond… who went with 6 other Stadia game development members and formed a new independent studio. Ouch.
But it’s not all doom and gloom, right? Hope springs eternal and all that jazz. And hey, according to Stadia developer marketing lead Nate Ahearn (via a GamesIndustry interview), the platform is “alive and well”.
We’re well on our way to over 100 new games launching on Stadia in 2021, and we’re continuing to make Stadia a great place to play games on devices you already own. I’d tell any non-believers to take notice of how we’re continuing to put our words into action, as we grow the Stadia Makers program and partner with AAA studios like Capcom, EA, Square Enix, Ubisoft and others.
Nate Ahearn
The interview goes on to state that they’ve continued to partner with giants in the industry to bring their current hits to the platform. Special note is given to Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 7, as well as Jedi: Fallen Order. Stadia is currently being helmed by Dov Zimring, described by Ahearn as such:
Dov has been instrumental as a senior leader in the product development for both Project Stream and Stadia. He will be leading the team toward our goals of creating the best possible platform for gamers and technology for our partners.
Nate Ahearn
Another point Ahearn brings up is their Stadia Makers program, created to allow indie developers with self-publishing. Specifically, that despite the closing of Stadia’s game development studios, they’re not putting pressure on indie devs to fill that gap.
We’re not shifting pressure onto the independent studios we work with in Stadia Makers. The whole point of the program is to support their addition of Stadia as a launch platform for their game, not add any pressure or make anything harder for them.
An important distinction about Stadia Makers to highlight is that by design, we don’t expect any studios to exclusively publish their game on Stadia. Rather, the program is designed to support studios in bringing their Unity-based games to launch on Stadia in addition to other platforms.
That translates into more games for players to enjoy from diverse voices, that tackle themes like mental health, dystopian realities, and the human mind. For the independent studios that are part of Stadia Makers, 2021 will bring more players to experience their games instantly through the cloud, and we think that’s a great opportunity to continue to build upon.
Nate Ahearn
In other Stadia-related news, April saw the addition of a search bar to Stadia for Web. Scintillating.
Source: PC Gamer
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