While we heard of Google Stadia shutting down internal productions a few weeks ago, the details to the extent of what occurred are only now beginning to come to light. And they aren’t pretty.
As sources disclosed to VGC, the closing down of Stadia development included not only first-party titles, but agreements with third-party studios as well. One notable cancellation was Journey to the Savage Planet 2 which was said to be far more grand in scale. Developer Typhoon’s future, whom Google acquired last year, is to be determined.
Perhaps more surprising however, is that a planned deal with Kojima Productions on an episodic horror title was also scrapped.
Sources indicated that the Japanese studio was keen to innovate in the cloud gaming space, but the deal was ultimately blocked by Stadia GM Phil Harrison last year.
According to the report, Google was also willing to spend “enormous” amounts of money to try and attract third-parties to the platform. This included sums of “tens of millions” of dollars for titles like Red Dead Redemption 2.
Our Take
The details of the rapid downfall of Stadia are surprising, even despite recognizing that they were struggling to begin with. We’re sure we’ll learn more in the coming months, but from the outside looking in, it feels like yet another example of a corporation believing they can buy their way into the gaming industry yet failing. They certainly aren’t the first. Where Stadia goes from here we’re unsure, but we have no confidence in it ever truly amounting to anything large unless there is a significant change in leadership and direction.
