1/ Yesterday’s closure of Stadia’s internal studios and business realignment shuttered Google’s cloud gaming platform strategy. In this thread I'll explain why.
theverge.com/22260994/googl… 2/ In the history of the game industry, first party content has been required for the success of platforms. Mario for Nintendo, Uncharted for Sony, HL2 for Steam. Microsoft knew this when they bought Bungie to release the Xbox.

1/ There are four sources of value in games. The first, and by far the largest, is CONTENT. The second is PLATFORM. The third is DISTRIBUTION. The fourth is TOOLS. 2/ Let’s start with CONTENT, which I define as IP ownership and not content creation. The lion's share of power in the games ecosystem belongs to the publishers and IP owners. They also consistently generate the most profits and sometimes expand into platform and distribution.

1/ The flaw in cloud gaming strategies today is the platforms see the opportunity as enabling distribution rather than creating new content. Cloud gaming should enable new experiences around centralized AI, physics, rendering. We explored this ten years ago at Square Enix. 2/ Google had glimpses of these cloud gaming opportunities at their Stadia announcement last year. EA spoke about it a few years ago too. But nothing innovative or new has come out. And what we're left with is underwhelming.