The company is shutting down both its Los Angeles and Montreal game studios, which existed under the Stadia Games and Entertainment banner. In a blog post, Phil Harrison, Vice President and General Manager of Google Stadia, rolled the announcement as a move to expand Stadia’s technology and platform rather than create original content. “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,” Harrison said. Harrison also said that 2021 will be a year in which the service looks to expand their efforts to help game developers and publishers take advantage of its platform technology and deliver games directly to their players. Jade Raymond, who headed the Stadia Games & Entertainment division and has been working in the video game industry for more than 15 years, is also leaving the company to pursue new opportunities, revealed Harrison. 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,” he added. Going forward, Stadia will focus on serving new third-party games to paying customers of the platform. If you are a current or future Stadia gamer, you can continue playing all your games on Stadia and Stadia Pro. Google said that with the recent successful launch of ‘Cyberpunk 2077′ game on Stadia, gameplay on all types of devices, including iOS, growing its slate of YouTube integrations and 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,” Harrison noted.
