Google Is Shutting Down All Their Internal Stadia Game Studios

February 2, 2021

At the time of writing this, Google’s Stadia streaming platform still isn’t available in Australia. Announced in 2019 as Google’s big push into the gaming market, Stadia was meant to be the cloud streaming platform of the future. Now, after only 14 months since their first Stadia Games and Entertainment development studio was established, Google is shutting down all internal game development according to an official statement from the company.

Citing the increasing time and financial costs of developing games, Stadia will instead focus on hosting other developer’s games on the platform and shutting down their own studios. This will involve winding down development on anything other than near term games form Stadia Games and Entertainment. This will mean hundreds of developers will lose their jobs, seemingly less than 18 months after Google hired them, while some high profile employees such as Jade Raymond have already walked out. What this means for acquired developer Typhoon Studios is unknown, but hopefully they can manage to get their freedom back as opposed to just being shuttered.

While Stadia isn’t shutting down, the closure of their internal studios isn’t a sign of good fortunes for the platform. We hope that all developers affected by the closure land on their feet and find work quickly.