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[Business Insider] Stadia - Why developers have held back

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dex3108

dex3108

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Oct 26, 2017
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Google says another 120 games are scheduled to hit Stadia this year, including some big upcoming blockbusters like "DOOM Eternal" and "Cyberpunk 2077."

But where are the dozens of indie hits that helped bolster the libraries of Sony's PlayStation 4, Microsoft's Xbox One, and Nintendo's Switch? Where are the games like "Bloodstained," "Shovel Knight," "Dead Cells," and "Untitled Goose Game" — the blockbuster indie games that sell millions of copies and inspire sequels?
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"We were approached by the Stadia team," one prominent indie developer told me. "Usually with that kind of thing, they lead with some kind of offer that would give you an incentive to go with them." But the incentive "was kind of non-existent," they said. "That's the short of it."

It's a statement we heard echoed by several prominent indie developers and two publishing executives we spoke with for this piece.

"It's that there isn't enough money there," one of the publishing executives we spoke with said. The offer was apparently "so low that it wasn't even part of the conversation."
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"There are platforms you want to be on because they have an audience and you want to reach that audience," one developer said. "That's what Steam is, or that's what [Nintendo] Switch is. They have big groups on their platforms, and you want to be with those groups so they can play your games."

But Stadia doesn't have a large audience to reach — at least not yet — so Google must create that incentive for developers. And the people we spoke with said, outside of money, there wasn't much reason to put their games on Stadia.
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"If you could see yourself getting into a long term relationship with Google?" one developer said. "But with Google's history, I don't even know if they're working on Stadia in a year. That wouldn't be something crazy that Google does. It's within their track record."
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"It wasn't just a financial thing," one developer told me who decided not to publish on Stadia. "At the end of the day, I'm asking the question, 'Why would I do this?' And there was no positive reason to move forward. There wasn't really anything to want us to get in the door other than to be the first on the platform."
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www.businessinsider.com

Google's ambitious push into gaming is floundering, and it's due largely to too few games on its Stadia platform — here's why developers have held back

Google's first major push into gaming is floundering, and it's largely due to a lack of games. Developers told us Google didn't offer enough money.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com
 
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