Google Stadia’s Latest Developer Acquisition Is Baffling and Foolish

Typhoon Studios has been snapped up to develop games for the Google Stadia.

As if they're not hated enough, Google Stadia is just trying to make people angry by acquiring exclusive studios. | Source: Reuters/Stephen Lam

  • Google Stadia hasn’t been particularly successful or popular online since its launch.
  • They recently bought the developers behind Journey to the Savage Planet to make games for the Stadia.
  • This new move will not help Stadia; more than likely it’ll just make them less popular than ever.

Google Stadia has not had a successful launch. Apart from being overpriced, the service appears to be running sub-optimal versions of most games. As any company would, they’ve been trying to make things better. Their latest effort to do that involves Journey to the Savage Planet. Well, it involves that game’s developers anyway.

Typhoon Studios, the developers in question, has been snapped up to develop games for the Google Stadia. While you might think this is a good thing for Google, the truth is that it doesn’t really get them anywhere. At least it doesn’t on its own.

This Won’t Help Google Stadia

Google Stadia is a bad service. It’s a demonstrably worse way to play games than pretty much any other way of playing. Having some exclusive games isn’t going to help them. No one is about to buy into Stadia because a developer made a game they like. On top of that, Journey to the Savage Planet isn’t even out yet. What if that game is terrible?

I know that Savage Planet isn’t coming to Google Stadia. At least, it’s not coming exclusively to Stadia. But I have to assume the reason that they’ve bought Typhoon is due to their reputation. Even if the game comes out and is amazing, it’s not going to get Stadia any sales on its own.

If the game is good, people are just going to be annoyed that the developer is now exclusively making Stadia products. If it’s bad, no one is going to care what they do either way. Basically, without fundamentally improving how Google Stadia works, all that Google has done is taken a potentially decent developer out of the industry.

The announcement is already starting to draw ire from the community on Twitter. At least if this expletive-filled tweet is anything to go by. | Source: Twitter

It Is Probably Going to Annoy People Too

If we’ve learned something, it’s that people aren’t a fan of exclusivity. This is a large part of the reason that people are annoyed at Epic Games Store. We also know that gamers will tolerate console exclusives, but can you imagine the reaction to a game being locked onto a service that no one wants to use?

Maybe it will all work out alright. If they’re really lucky, Google Stadia will improve and Typhoon will produce some amazing killer apps. Personally, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. There is just as much as a chance that Stadia will remain the buggy piece of hot garbage it is and Typhoon will never be allowed to make anything meaningful for a broad audience ever again.

Last modified: September 23, 2020 1:25 PM
