Google Stadia in danger: not interesting for game developers
Google Stadia has been running for a few months now, but it seems that it did not have great success expected. Probably one of the great reasons is the lack of games.
It is not necessary to be a financial genius to guess that if a gaming platform does not have the approval of those who create the games, the platform is condemned to a slow agony and the indifference of the users.
This is what is happening to Google Stadia in these early stages. The game developers are not interested in Stadia by the low economic performance that Google offers content creators.
As they point out from the American edition of Business Insider, the lack of economic incentives from Google would be keeping indie game developers away from their entertainment platform.
An executive from one of these companies said that the amount of money Google was offering them was so low that they hadn’t even sat down to negotiate with the search giant. These incentives would be much lower than those offered by other platforms such as Epic or Microsoft for distributing their titles.
Currently, Google Stadia only has 28 games available in its video game streaming service, although at the end of the year Google promised to add more than 120 titles to the platform this year, including some big blockbusters such as DOOM Eternal and Cyberpunk 2077.
However, a solid platform should not be built only based on large franchises. Indies titles are largely responsible for the strength of platforms such as Microsoft’s PlayStation or Game Pass, which in their catalog have great titles from the indie scene that have become bestsellers.
Some of the developers who are already distributing their games on other platforms are worried about the future of Google Stadia since, if these tight margins of benefits for developers are maintained, it would be jeopardizing their long-term future.
Indie game developers not only move for money, but some have also stated that they are on certain platforms such as Steam or Nintendo Switch because they are places where visibility is gained thanks to the huge volume of users who enter daily. Something that Google still can not offer for the small percentage of users who use its platform.
The fame that precedes Google does not give the industry much confidence, especially after having buried several projects ahead of time. This uncertainty means that Google Stadia does not have the support of developers and, therefore, if Google does not react, it may be the beginning of premature death.