It’s never good when, as a business, you have to ensure customers your product or service isn’t going away. That typically means things aren’t going well for you. And those customers you’re talking to? There might not be that many of them. Yet that’s what Google Stadia had to do recently. After laying off a host of developers and watching a line of key figures walk out the door, customers have been understandably shaken and concerned about the future of the platform.
Don’t worry, Stadia folk — Google wants you to know everything is a-okay.
The nice people over at GamesIndustry.biz recently spoke to Nate Ahearn, the developer marketing lead for Stadia. Ahearn did his very best to portray Stadia as a project Google still very much cares about, telling GI the service is “alive and well.” According to Ahearn, Google has “100 new games launching on Stadia in 2021,” which at least means those who are sold on streaming will have some new experiences to check out.
It’s hard to ignore there have been way more misses than hits when it comes to Stadia, however. The platform has yet to introduce many of its promised features nearly a year and a half after launch. And Stadia — Resident Evil Village aside — hasn’t been that effective at attracting newer games. Many of the titles Google’s been touting are now what some might consider “previous gen.”
Hopefully — for the sake of those who’ve paid for Stadia games and use it regularly — Ahearn isn’t blowing smoke here, and Google really does plan to support Stadia long into the future. Based on the company’s history and the speed at which it murders products, you’d be right to be skeptical.
If Google actually chooses to play the long game here, though — and gives Stadia time to become a stable, credible place to play games — it might become something more than a punchline.
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