For a fortuitous series of events regarding the launch of cyberpunk 2077, Google Stadia has suffered a increase in subscriptions which led the company to publish a blog post with bittersweet news about the future of cloud gaming at Google.
In this article, let's explore the choice that came from the American company through their blog, trying to frame the reasons that led to such a decision.
Cyberpunk 2077 and Stadia Premiere Edition
Let's take a step back: last November, after having already heard of a couple of referrals of Cyberpunk 2077, Google Stadia has decided to launch an incredible offer for its version of the game: the Premiere Edition of the cloud gaming service as a gift with the pre-order of Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia.
Many did not miss the offer, including myself, as the Premiere Edition is inclusive of Google Chromecast Ultra e Official Stadia gamepad, two technologies that together withPro subscription, at least personally, I'm still using a lot.
Obviously, my experience alone is not worth the entire spectrum of people who have benefited from theCyberpunk 2077 + Premiere Edition of Stadia offer, but the Google blog confirms that the initiative has brought the company an increase in earnings and a change of perspective which we will talk about shortly, thanks to the limp launch on consoles and the very high gaming requirements on PC.
Read also: Cyberpunk 2077 between crunch and dubious decisions: shadows on CD Projekt Red
The Stadia version of Cyberpunk 2077 in this way not only proved to be an unmissable offer, but also an excellent compromise. And in the long run, some players have continued to renew your subscription and make purchases on the store of Stadia, attracted by further offers or simply by being able to play games otherwise not usable on other platforms for any reason. Always fielding my experience, I took advantage of NBA 2K21 for € 19, and I'm still playing it every day. By now I have reached the second consecutive subscription paid to Stadia, and apparently I am not the only one satisfied with the service provided so far.
The consequences of Cyberpunk on Stadia
The good news revealed by the Google Stadia blog is that the initiative launched with Cyberpunk convinced Google to continue to invest in this technology. In this regard, we report some words written by Phil Harrison, vice president and general manager of Google Stadia.
We launched Stadia with the aim of making your favorite games instantly available wherever you want to play them. With the recent successful launch of Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia, with the gameplay available on all types of devices, including iOS, as our list of integrations with YouTube, and with our global expansions, it's clear that Stadia's technology has been demonstrated and is working on a large scale. Having games streamed to any screen is the future of this industry, and we will continue to invest in Stadia and its core platform to provide the best cloud gaming experience for our partners and gaming communities. This has been Stadia's vision from the start.
Harrison confirms that he is continually expanding Stadia's infrastructure and is putting every effort of this division of Google intohelp developers and publishers take advantage of the cloud gaming infrastructure. According to the vice president, it is possible that they will be published in the near future you play exclusively on Stadia, built solely on Google's cloud gaming infrastructure. For Harrison it is a business that would help the company in the long term on the one hand, and that would affect theevolution of the video game industry on the other.
Read also: Hitman 3 will be one of the first AAAs to support Stadia's State Share
But the consequences of Cyberpunk 2077 on Google Stadia have also had a high price: to be able to afford this new step forward in cloud gaming, the company has decided to close their newly born development studios interior. In other words, Google Stadia has decided to devote himself entirely to third-party games.
Creating best-in-class games from scratch takes many years and significant investment, and the cost is rising exponentially. Given our focus on building on Stadia's proven technology and deepening our commercial partnerships, we've decided that We will not invest further in bringing exclusive content from our internal Stadia Game & Entertainment development team, beyond any short-term planned play.
SG&E president Jade Raymond will be leaving Google shortly, and others 150 developers they will leave the Stadia offices according to the estimates of Kotaku's colleagues. Google will obviously support the severance pay of all workers who have so far contributed their work in the Google Stadia video games, but the decision leaves thebitterness in the mouth for several reasons, one of which is well highlighted by the journalist Jason Schreier in this tweet, of which we report a translation below.
I know it's funny to joke about Stadia imploding and, yes, a lot of people had predicted that such a thing would happen but it's hard not to be mad at Google for hiring more than 150 video game developers just to throw them all away a year later as happened with Google Glasses.
Why is Google abandoning game development?
It is strange to think that one of the most important companies in the world in the field of technology is held on the sidelines when it comes to creating video games, what is considered the medium of the new millennium, after just two timid attempts that did not have the hoped-for success. But why are there people who had predicted such an epilogue, in the wake of what happened with Amazon?
Triple-A video games are a big risk, sure, but a company like Google would be able to cover the costs easily. There are many personalities who are indulging in sarcastic comments about it, such as Jeff Grub, famous writer and author of video games reported in the tweets above, and I admit that I too thought the same things before having a comparison with other people in the WelcomeGaming.com editorial staff and having thought about it.
It wouldn't be so much about finding a market already saturated with video games it's full of publishers who eat other publishers (remember the latest bombshell, Microsoft that acquired Bethesda?), but rather of one economic question. Of course, if maybe Google had launched into video game creation a decade or two ago, maybe now we would be talking about another story, but the point is that at present Google doesn't agree not at all in remunerative terms to start developing video games.
Google has always sold services, and services are much more profitable than video games. Stadia has tried to throw itself into the creative dimension of videogames, but it has done so with very little risk (and plausibly earning even less), and has found that to set up a studio like the major companies in the videogame industry it would not bring its gaming division back. costs. Creating a service that instead helps all other companies to publish their creations is fully part of the economic philosophy of the largest tech company in the world.
Think about Valve which has loosened its hand on actual video game development to focus almost entirely on the infrastructure of Steam, a service that pays him many more revenues from the production of a video game. It is estimated that from Steam, Valve in 2017 managed to capitalize in one day what an average development studio can earn in 4 years.
Read also: In 2020 Steam had more active PlayStation and Xbox users
At this point one could argue that Steam, as well as for example epic Games, although they offer services they also function as a development studio. But we're talking about two companies that have a market limited to a single industry, while Google is a monstrous, sprawling giant moving in multiple directions; and that lately it is having problems with different antitrust of several nations because of its enormous facets that would configure it almost as a monopoly. As the Google blog post showed, the video game market is certainly a good opportunity for the big tech company, but exclusively from its point of view: that of services.
It is not so much us players who lose out, deprived of some videogame idea that we will honestly never miss, given that the market is overflowing with them. The only people who have paid the price for Stadia's success are those 150 developers forced out of their jobs.
