Google's post-Stadia plan? Helping live service publishers find their groove

Google says it remains "absolutely committed to games," just months after the company shut down its short-lived game streaming platform, Stadia.

Speaking to Axios about Google's place in the game industry in the post-Stadia world, Google Cloud's director of game industry solutions, Jack Buser, said the tech firm is best-placed to succeed when it's supporting others. As such, the company wants to extend a helping hand to live-service publishers.

"It was at that moment when we basically had to make decisions about Stadia that we realized that, at Google Cloud, we are at our best when we’re helping other people build this stuff, not necessarily building it ourselves," Buser told Axios.

What happened with Google Stadia?

Stadia was scrapped in January this year after failing to gain traction with users, but the company said it would continue to invest in new tools, technologies, and platforms that would empower developers.

Now, we know that Google has been attempting to sell service bundles to publishers with a clear focus on live-service titles. Those packages apparently include a game-centric server platform, cloud storage data management, and searchable player and game analytics.

Google is already working with companies including Ubisoft, Niantic, and Unity, but is keen to collaborate with other major publishers.

Axios reiterated that Buser's team is entirely focused on providing solutions for live-service games, and explained the demise of Stadia means Google was forced to scrap plans to work with companies like AT&T to help bring game streaming to their customers.

"Unfortunately, when we decided to not move forward with Stadia, that sort of [business-to-business] offering could no longer be offered as well," said Buser.

For the time being, then, it seems Google will largely be focused on helping others breathe life into live-service projects while its own dreams of pioneering ubiquitous game streaming gather dust.