Google Stadia Shutting Down First Party Studios

Google Stadia is shutting down its first party studios, according to a statement by Google. Instead, the platform will focus on being a service to stream third-party games and Google will no longer develop exclusives internally.

The service, which originally debuted as a hardware-free way to play console games, was also set to have its own roster of first-party exclusives for the platform.

However, according to their blog post, they’ve had to since drop the idea of first party exclusives, citing growing costs as a reason.

“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 (Stadia Games and Entertainment), beyond any near-term planned games”, the post reads.

Jade Raymond, Motive Studios founder and head of SG&E,  has also since left Google, with no announced plans as of yet. Prior to working on the Stadia, she had an illustrious career at both EA and Ubisoft.

Those who think this is Google Stadia shutting down shouldn’t quite pop out the champagne just yet, since they’ve every inclination to keep Stadia going as a platform. As it stands, Stadia had its big moment where it was the only console reportedly running Cyberpunk 2077 with no issues.

According to the blogpost, Stadia and its premium service, Stadia Pro will continue to operate as a cloud gaming service. The only difference being that unlike the major consoles, this will be a platform without exclusives outside of the ones already slated for release.