Ubisoft leveraging Stadia for WFH development, games are ‘doing well’

Abner Li | May 14 2020 - 4:17 pm PT

Ubisoft is one of Google’s major partners when it comes to providing streaming content. During its fiscal year 2020 earnings call today, Ubisoft provided a quick update on Stadia’s performance, and how the studio is taking advantage of the cloud for development amid COVID-19 and WFH.

When asked about Stadia’s progress, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot (via Twinfinite) said that “more and more games” are coming to the Google platform. Monopoly and The Crew 2 launched in the past two months, joining Just Dance 2020, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, The Division 2, Trials Rising, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

Those seven titles are said to be “doing well.” A more “interesting” reveal was how Ubisoft is leveraging Stadia’s cloud streaming for development because “it gives a chance for work from home people to review some of their games.”

“More and more games now available on Stadia, which are doing well. We are also using a lot of Stadia possibilities to actually do development because it gives a chance for work from home people to review some of their games, so it’s something interesting.

Cloud is coming at a normal speed, I would say. It’s getting better and better. We think at the end of the year you will see some evolution on the number of players, and also on the brands that will be launched there. It’s a good long-term trend that will change the industry, we think.”

Ubisoft’s development approach echoes similar WFH comments made by Destiny 2 developer Bungie in March:

“We’ve been fortunate to be supported by Google Stadia to scale up our remote playtesting capabilities quickly.”

Stadia’s cloud-based nature means that developers are not tied to a physical development machine or console that might only be available in the office. Meanwhile, with everyone now remotely working, there might be a shortage of available devices to go around.

Besides developing in Google’s cloud, Stadia hardware can also be placed in a studio’s data center or at desk with a PC tower. Google last year said its goal is “to make Stadia the most flexible development environment ever put together.”

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