Stadia’s developer marketing lead insists that the platform is doing fine

Hey, folks, did you hear that Google Stadia is doing fine? You probably didn’t. Actually, you probably thought the opposite, what with the the platform having lost its first-party development outfit altogether and the biggest new feature added being a search bar (and when your product is made by Google, a search feature would seem likely to be your first addition). But developer marketing lead Nate Ahearn has spoken to GamesIndustry.biz, and he says the service is “alive and well”:

We’re well on our way to over 100 new games launching on Stadia in 2021, and we’re continuing to make Stadia a great place to play games on devices you already own. […] I’d tell any non-believers to take notice of how we’re continuing to put our words into action, as we grow the Stadia Makers program and partner with AAA studios like Capcom, EA, Square Enix, Ubisoft and others.

Ahearn also states that no additional pressure is being put on the mobile studios which now represent the only form of exclusivity the platform has and that the team continues to move forward introducing new features like the aforementioned search bar. He didn’t choose to comment on the installed base, however, which suggests that perhaps all of the other warning signs about the cloud-based service may not be entirely non-indicative.