Google surprisingly decided to shut down its Stadia studio on February 1, the reason being the exponential cost of developing best-in-class games.
Based on a recent report by Kotaku, the news of Google shutting down the Stadia division was a huge surprise for in-house developers as well.
“[Stadia Games and Entertainment] has made great progress building a diverse and talented team and establishing a strong lineup of Stadia exclusive games,”
said Phil Harrison in an email to the team.
However, only a week after the email, the company announced to shut down the said division altogether.
“Creating best-in-class games from the ground up takes many years and significant investment, and the cost is going up exponentially,”
Harrison wrote in the shut-down announcement.
“Given our focus on building on the proven technology of Stadia as well as deepening our business partnerships, we’ve decided that we will not be investing further in bringing exclusive content from our internal development team SG&E, beyond any near-term planned games,”
he further added.