Google Stadia Will Not Have First Party Games

Written by Brandon Hofer on February 01, 2021

News: Google is now positioning Stadia to be more like Steam, a platform for hosting third party games instead of making their own.

Google has released a statement regarding the future of Stadia and it is disappointing. It appears that Google has decided not to put out first party games on the Stadia, instead focusing on the platform and “building the technology”. What this means to you, our reader, is that you will still be able to play third party games like Cyberpunk on Stadia, as well as future third party games, however, it doesn’t look like we will see anything directly from Google. Essentially, it seems like Google wants to be Valve here and run Stadia as a platform, similar to Steam.

The statement in its entirety is below:

“We launched Stadia with the goal of making your favorite games instantly available wherever you want to play them. With the recent successful launch of Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia, gameplay on all types of devices, including iOS, growing our slate of YouTube integrations, and our global expansions, it’s clear that Stadia’s technology has been proven and works at scale. Having games streamed to any screen is the future of this industry, and we’ll continue to invest in Stadia and its underlying platform to provide the best cloud gaming experience for our partners and the gaming community. This has been the vision of Stadia since the beginning.

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.“

Just to be crystal clear, Google Stadia isn’t going anywhere. If you are enjoying it, you can still play games like Cyberpunk or Hitman 3 on it, as well as future third party titles. Unfortunately, we just won’t see any first party output. What do you think about this development? Are you excited that we won’t see first party titles for Google Stadia?

source: Google