Posted in: Games, Google Stadia, Video Games | Tagged: google, Google Stadia, SG&E, Stadia, Stadia Games & Entertainment

Google Stadia Scraps Their Own Game Development Studios

Published Mon, 01 Feb 2021 19:40:46 -0600

by Gavin Sheehan

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Dissapointing news from Google todayas they revealed they are shuttering SG&E (Stadia Games & Entertainment) and all titles with it. The company announced that they will be scraping the game development wing of all things Stadia and focusing more on the platform itself. The news also comes with the reveal that longtime game producer and now former head of SG&E Jade Raymond has left the company. We have part of the statement the company made about the shift in direction below, but no matter how you look at it, this is just sad news in gaming. Of all companies who has the means and the money to produce quality content, Google certainly has the ability to do so. It raises a lot of questions as to why they ended it just two years later and what was going on with the games they had in development. Also, Raymond no longer working for the company is a golden opportunity for anyone looking to hire an amazing executive, not to mention all the amazing developers they poached who are now looking for work.

In 2021, we're expanding our efforts to help game developers and publishers take advantage of our platform technology and deliver games directly to their players. We see an important opportunity to work with partners seeking a gaming solution all built on Stadia's advanced technical infrastructure and platform tools. We believe this is the best path to building Stadia into a long-term, sustainable business that helps grow the industry.

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. We greatly appreciate Jade's contribution to Stadia and wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors. Over the coming months, most of the SG&E team will be moving on to new roles. We're committed to working with this talented team to find new roles and support them.

What does this mean if you're a current or future Stadia gamer? You can continue playing all your games on Stadia and Stadia Pro, and we'll continue to bring new titles from third parties to the platform. We're committed to the future of cloud gaming, and will continue to do our part to drive this industry forward. Our goal remains focused on creating the best possible platform for gamers and technology for our partners, bringing these experiences to life for people everywhere.

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