Once upon a time Google had a vision for beefing up Stadia with exclusive games that would come from an internal studio. The studio was called Stadia Games and Entertainment. It was helmed by industry legend Jade Raymond. And the promise of a bright future of exclusive titles that you couldn’t get anywhere else was presented.
Today, you can officially start saying your goodbyes to the dream of a Stadia library that’s filled with games from the company’s internal studios. Because Google is shutting them down. In an official blog post, Google says that it will no longer be investing in future titles from this development team.
Instead, it’s looking to the future and plans to invest more heavily in its third-party studio partnerships.
Shutting down the internal studio does not mean no exclusive Stadia games
While this might be a little bit disappointing to anyone that was looking forward to having true exclusives, all is not lost.
Google shutting down Stadia Games & Entertainment does not mean no exclusive Stadia games from its internal studio. The company says that it still plans to release “near-term” projects. So if there were any games that were already in development from SG&E that weren’t years off from completion, these are still likely to be released.
This also doesn’t mean that Stadia itself is disappearing. Google says it merely feels its best path forward lies in a different direction. To keep Stadia strong long-term it will focus on strengthening the partnerships with third-party studios and developers.
Players should expect Stadia to continue to see timed exclusives from non-internal studios. As well as AAA game releases that are also launching on other platforms like console and PC.
Jade Raymond exits the company
As part of the change moving forward, SG&E’s leadership, Jade Raymond, will be exiting the company and “pursuing other opportunities.”
Naturally there are no reasons given for the exit. Nor should there be. Google is also going to be moving remaining employees to other roles within Stadia. Google assures its users that the platform itself is sticking around and that it’s committed to the future of cloud gaming.
Unfortunately, shutting down its internal studios doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. All that said, users shouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet and immediately jump ship. Though, it might be a good idea to exercise a little more caution with game purchases going forward. At least for now.