Stadia Addresses Lack Of Game Announcements, Saying It's Up To Publishers

The Google Stadia has had a bit of a rough launch, with only one exclusive (Tequila Works’ Gylt) and middling reviews from critics. Now, as one owner has pointed out on Reddit, it’s been 40 days since a new game was announced for the service–and when questioned on this, Google has responded.

Google has provided a statement to Gamesindustry.biz about its silence on upcoming releases, and has said that much of this falls on publishers who are gearing up to make their own announcements.

Google has previously said that there are 120 games coming to Stadia in 2020, including at least 10 exclusives in the first half of the year, and in its statement they say that they won’t be announcing all of them directly. “Of course, not all 120 titles will be announced by the Stadia team,” the statement reads, “As we leave it up to the publishers to make the announcement about their IP/games, and which platforms it will appear on–just as we will do with the exclusive content coming to Stadia.”

Google says that there are many reasons why publishers might want to hold off on announcing Stadia games, and that more news is coming. “We continue to work closely with our publishing and developing partners and are here to support them in all areas. We are excited to share more about some of the exclusive games coming to Stadia soon.”

According to Android Police, only 17 games in total are known to be coming to Stadia beyond what’s already available. These include some big titles like Marvel’s Avengers, Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal, Watch Dogs: Legion, Baldur’s Gate III and Destroy All Humans. Still, it’s a low number.

Earlier in January, Gylt creative director Raul Rubio praised Stadia for being very easy to develop for. Google also recently bought Typhoon Studios, the developer of Journey to the Savage Planet. That game, which was published by 505 Games, has not been announced for Stadia as of yet. Stadia also has its own first-party studio that is working on games, although none have been announced yet.