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https://news.italy24.press/trends/406572.html

Google closed its Stadia services months ago, but it hasn’t completely exited the gaming sector: Google Cloud presents its new strategy called Google Cloud for Live Games, which will aim to use its global infrastructure to facilitate companies that produce video games.

Dead Stadia, Google is ready to return to the gaming industry​

Google Cloud technology, which powers YouTube and Google Search, can enable video game companies to launch flawlessly and to support up to millions of users without missing a beat: said Jack Buser, director of solutions for the video game industry at Google Cloud. “It was at that moment, when we had to make decisions about Stadia, that we realized that, in Google Cloud, we are at our best when we help others build these things, not necessarily build them.”

Buser was responsible for the PlayStation Home virtual world years ago and joined the Google Stadia team in early 2016 to set up a platform that could aim to compete with giants like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo; offering a series of playable titles in streaming, using remote servers, without the user needing a console or PC.

Google looks to the future of video games​

In late 2021, Buser moved to the Google Cloud gaming team, where Google’s technology is leveraged to manage third-party games running on consoles, PCs or phones: “Google Cloud management has decided to have a global gaming organization. And they instructed me to come and drive it,” Buser said. “It was a wild ride.”

“The flagship games are all live service games, all of them,” Buser said. “So whether it’s an MMO, whether it’s a live service mobile game, whether it’s a battle royale,” Buser said. “The common thread is that these games are updated in the long term based on the behavior, wishes and requests of the players. You have to understand the players. You have to be able to not only draw them into the game, but also keep them for long periods of time. It’s very different from the old days of cartridges and optical discs.”

Google Cloud for Live Games. Sounds very similar to Games for Windows Live. Nightmare memories.

Well, looks like Google is going to try for a third time but not directly this time. Not sure how that's going to work out given the competition in this space, and they are focusing this new strategy on live service games, which have been flopping left ad right recently. There's also a bunch of competition in this space already.

I mean we have the ex-PlayStation Home guy now at Google, saying all the (future?) flagship games will be live service, and so far, that's not been working out. They may be choosing the wrong pivot here.