Google Stadia’s director has gone to the Cloud department to work
Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service has lost another top video game industry. According to a report by ZDNet, Google Stadia game director and former PlayStation executive Jack Buser will be transferred to Google Cloud. His new position will be director of global game solutions, effective September 13.
“Google Stadia Controller on display at the Gamescom in Cologne, Germany” by verchmarco is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Gaming is an incredibly important vertical at Google and we’re seeing huge momentum across all products and services. Jack’s new role will allow us to better bring customers the best of Google across our Cloud services, Stadia, YouTube, and more. Stadia continues to be led by its GM Phil Harrison, and Stadia’s business development and partner management teams will continue to be led by Michael Abbattista, who took over the role in 2020.
In fact, this personnel transfer also allows us to further see what direction Google holds for the future of Stadia. Google disbanded Stadia’s first-party game studio six months ago and announced that Stadia will be built as a technology platform for industry partners, providing them with proven technical support. At the same time, there are plans to sell some of Stadia’s technology to other game companies to develop their own game streaming services.
Jack Buser, who has built PlayStation Now, Plus, and Home platforms, and built Stadia, will be transferred to the Google Cloud department. It can be considered that Google wants to invest more deeply and extensively in the game business, such as providing services for game developers, or gaining more cooperation in e-sports live broadcast, rather than just providing game services to players.
Of course, there is a more intuitive possibility that Google is ready to abandon Stadia or merge it into other products.
