Google abandoned Stadia in January, but the company still says it remains committed to gaming behind the scenes. And this commitment does not ultimately include cloud gaming technology…
After a short three-year career, Stadia shut down on January 18. The game streaming service has failed to become a leading platform in a market with still uncertain profitability. Google is not completely abandoning the software sector, however. cloud gaminglaunching late last year new Chromebooks designed for streaming game services, but those of others.
A toolkit for online game-service hosting
“ We had to make this decision [de fermer Stadia] because we realized that we are at our best with Google Cloud, when we help other people create these experiences “, said Jack Buser to the site Axios. The director of Google Cloud solutions for the games industry seeks to sell the various tools available to video game publishers, tools grouped within the “Cloud program”.
This set of services includes a server platform adapted to the needs of the games, an online storage management system as well as game statistics via BigQuery. Google already has several large customers active in this program, including Ubisoft, Unity and Niantic (creator of the game Pokemon GO). The search engine markets these solutions to publishers specializing in “games-services”, in other words those games which are intended to be continuously updated with game pass and season systems in the manner of Fortnite.
Game-services are a booming sector, we see the concept at work in Destiny 2, Marvel’s Avengers or soon Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Not all of them are successes, we can even speak of bitter failure for Marvel’s Avengers. Google is positioning itself solely on the technical aspect, promising to reduce the risks and in particular the occasional overloads due to sudden increases in popularity.
Jack Buser, on the other hand, definitively buries the Stadia infrastructure, which will not be offered to publishers. Several experiments had been attempted based on the actual streaming technology: the operator AT&T had used it to offer Batman: Arkham Knight streaming to its customers. Despite the closure of Stadia, Google had suggested that the platform would continue to be marketed as a white label. But that’s no longer relevant.
” We no longer offer this streaming offer, as it was tied to Stadia itself “, explains the leader. ” Unfortunately, when we decided to move forward with Stadia, this type of offer could no longer be offered. “, he adds. This time, we can truly say that Stadia is truly dead and buried.
