It’s been a busy year for Google Stadia, and not always in a good way. The service closed an internal game development studio and also lost key executives. However, despite these struggles, Stadia is “alive and well.”
GamesIndustry.biz interviewed Stadia developer marketing lead Nate Ahearn, who assured the website that things are just fine. Ahearn highlighted the fact that over 100 new games are launching on the service this year.
“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,” Ahearn said. “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.”
While Stadia is adding a healthy dose of new games, including the recently released Resident Evil Village, there are still concerns over its longterm viability, especially after closing its in-house development studio so quickly. Stadia head of product John Justice and Stadia Games lead Jade Raymond departed the service, the latter of whom created a new studio that is going to create new IP for Sony.
The report also doesn’t really address concerns over whether people are actually signing up for the service. Google hasn’t announced how many paying subscribers Stadia has, and a report in February claimed the service failed to meet expectations by “hundreds of thousands.”
Alyssa Kollgaard, a senior producer at Akupara Games, told GamesIndustry.biz enthusiasm is high for Stadia, and that the service needs time to grow.
“”If you’re familiar with the technology adoption life cycle, I’d say we are currently in the ‘Early Adopter’ phase moving into the ‘Early Majority’ phase,” Kollgaard said. “It hasn’t quite reached that watershed moment yet, but Google is currently pushing the boundaries of the tech and has the strength of brand awareness and funding to really kickstart the field. It’s not something that will happen overnight – it’s a slow burn.”
There’s no doubt Stadia has matured a lot since it launched at the end of 2019, with plenty of new features on the horizon. And with more games to come in 2021, it’s showing a lot of promise. But Google has a track record for killing off services, so it remains to be seen how “alive and well” Stadia will be.
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