The Vice President and GM of Google’s Stadia division announced the end of the Stadia Games and Entertainment (SG&E) team. Phil Harrison made the announcement in a Google blog post.
“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. With the increased focus on using our technology platform for industry partners, Jade Raymond has decided to leave Google to pursue other opportunities.”
Phil Harrison, Google Stadia VP & GM
Harrison says most of the SG&E team will move to other roles in the company. Harrison says they are committed to cloud gaming. The issue was the time and huge investments required to create first class games from the ground up.
He pointed to some of the successes Stadia has seen. The Cyberpunk 2077 launch on the platform was a highlight. However, today’s news has to be disappointing to Stadia users after Google formed their game studio in 2019.
The big announcement was made at the Stadia presentation March 19, 2019 at the Game Developer’s Conference. Google had formed their own Stadia Games and Entertainment (SG&E) team as their own first party game studio. Their mission was to build experiences designed exclusively for Stadia. The studio was led by one of the industry’s most successful executive producers, Jade Raymond.
Fast forward to today and Google will focus working with partners based on Stadia’s advanced infrastructure. One interesting partnership launched in December 2020. Ubisoft+, a game subscription service that offers access to 100+ games on PC, became available on Stadia. Titles included premium versions of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Watch Dogs: Legion, for example.
Based on today’s announcement, expect more partnerships. But the question lingers online- is this the first step in closing up Stadia?
