Alphabet followed the strategy of the discount retailers (Aldi, LIDL) in making the technology available on its platform, but that, too, has ended.

The analogy needs to be explained: a discount chain may be supplied by a manufacturer whose product we know, but we can find the same product cheaper, in generally larger quantities, under the chain’s brand. Google did the same thing with Stadia. For example, it has licensed its cloud-based service technology to AT&T under the name Immersive Stream for Games so that its subscribers can play Batman: Arkham Knight from the cloud, but also, for example, Peloton’s Lanebreak, a fitness bike game, and a browser-based demo of Resident Evil: Village.

Axios has reported that Google has recently been offering its Google Cloud tools to publishers to run their live service games. Still, the implication was that the “unbranded Google Stadia” is no longer licensed by the Alphabet-owned company. Jack Buser, director of game industry solutions at Google Cloud, told Axios’ Stephen Totilo, “We are not offering that streaming option because it was tied to Stadia. So, unfortunately, when we decided not to move forward with Stadia, that sort of [business-to-business] offering could no longer be offered.”

In the meantime, Google will support a different platform, as it did during its presentation at the 2019 Game Developers Conference. It’s Agones, developed in partnership with Ubisoft. It’s a combination of game servers, engine integration, and player monitoring metrics tools, and Yager, Niantic, and Unity are using it to get into the live service market. Buser was previously the director of games at Stadia. He said: “It was at that moment when we 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.”

Not everyone is into live service games, and many have failed (Knockout City, Rumbleverse, Hyper Scape, Anthem, Marvel’s Avengers…).

Source: PCGamer