Those of us who have been proclaiming the death of Stadia may well have been wrong, as Google has announced that Stadia is absolutely fine and even has a bunch of new titles on the way. Presumably not from a Montreal game development studio, though.
Google Stadia Is Perfectly Fine...
Google Stadia's recent history has not quite been the illustrious affair many expected it to be. It closed all of its in-house game development studios, to concentrate on third party games, much to the ire of many a Stadia user.
This led to many Stadia users ditching the service, citing many reasons as to why they want to leave Stadia.
However, in a gamesindustry.biz interview, Nate Ahearn, developer marketing lead at Stadia, says the platform is absolutely fine. Despite the fact that it lost Jade Raymond, along with six other members of staff, to Raymond's Haven studio.
Is Google Stadia Alive and Well?
Apparently so, as Ahearn also confirmed that:
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.
That isn't a bad release roster considering Sony has just announced a comparatively paltry sounding 25 new games. Not only that but, in the absence of in-house game studios, Stadia's developer marketing team has partnered up with some killer names in the industry. Ahearn continues:
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.
Sounds good, but will any of this be exclusive to Stadia, or are we just talking the likes of Resident Evil Village, here, because you can get that anywhere...
However, you can't deny that these partnerships are positive steps for a service that sees constant backlash from half of its user base. Still not first-party titles, though, are they?
Should Stadia Have First-Party Titles?
This is one of the constant dichotomies experienced when thinking about the Stadia platform. Gamers signed up because Google promised them first-party games. They released a grand total of zero, so it stands to reason that it would upset Stadia subscribers.
Without these in-house developed games, is Stadia "just another" platform? Well, really, it is. It struggles to stand out from the crowd, offering very little in terms of new or different experiences that set it apart from its peers.
Closing those first-party studios was a mistake, no matter how you look at it.