Google shuts down efforts to publish first-party Stadia games as Jade Raymond departs

Kyle Bradshaw | Feb 1 2021 - 11:40 am PT

Google has announced that it is winding down Stadia Games and Entertainment, shutting down efforts to develop first-party games.

In an announcement on the Google Blog, Phil Harrison, Google’s Vice President and GM of Stadia, has shared that Stadia Games and Entertainment, a wide-reaching effort to develop first-party games for Stadia as well as publish games from other developers, is coming to an end.

First announced at GDC 2019, eight months before Stadia’s formal launch, Stadia Games and Entertainment was a new division of Google led by industry veteran Jade Raymond. Since its inception, Stadia Games and Entertainment has been involved with publishing a small handful of exclusive titles, specifically GYLT, Orcs Must Die! 3, Submerged: Hidden Depths, and Outcasters.

The division had locations throughout the world, including a studio located in Playa Vista, CA, where another industry veteran Shannon Studstill, best known as executive producer on the God of War series, was said to be working on “delivering exclusive games.”

According to today’s announcement, Google is shifting its focus away from creating first-party titles and instead helping developers get their games onto Stadia, with efforts like the Stadia Makers program. With the shift in focus and shutdown of Stadia Games and Entertainment, Jade Raymond is leaving Google, while most of the rest of the team will be moving into new roles.

However, Stadia Games and Entertainment’s efforts are not being immediately shut down, but are instead winding down. Any “near-term planned games” should still see release, with Kotaku reporting that any first-party Stadia games that were intended for release past 2021 will likely be cancelled.

Closing out the announcement, Harrison re-commits to Stadia’s continued future, serving as a home to third-party games. Google will continue its efforts to bring third-party developers and their games into the Stadia roster while simultaneously making strides to drive the cloud gaming industry forward. One such effort is for Google to partner with other companies to offer Stadia’s technology to create “a gaming solution built on Stadia’s advanced technical infrastructure and platform tools.”

The original version of this article incorrectly stated that Google was “winding down Stadia.” This typo has since been corrected.