Google’s Stadia gaming division reportedly missed its user goals by hundreds of thousands of gamers

• Google’s Stadia gaming division missed user targets by the hundreds of thousands, according to Bloomberg.
• A source told Wired they questioned whether executives “above Stadia’s leadership understand what they have gotten into.”
• Google announced in February that it would stop developing internal games for Stadia.
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Google’s Stadia shut down its internal game development division after failing to meet targets, including apparently losing its monthly active user goal by hundreds of thousands of gamers, according to new reports examining the project.

Google announced on February 1 that it was abandoning its effort to create video games internally after less than two years. Its Stadia Games & Entertainment division, responsible for creating the games, will be closed, the company said.

“We have decided that we will not invest more in bringing in exclusive content from our SG&E internal development team, beyond any games planned in the short term,” wrote Phil Harrison, Vice President of Stadia, in a blog post.

On Friday, Bloomberg reported that the division had not met internal company targets for active users and controller sales. The two had a difference of hundreds of thousands, according to the report, which cited two unidentified sources.

Wired on Friday also posted a more in-depth look at where the Stadia development project went wrong. The report said Google planned to hire 2,000 people in five years. The company ended up shutting down the project and reportedly laid off about 150 game developers.

There seemed to be a disconnect between the way game developers typically work – testing games internally and releasing them as close to their final form as possible – and the way Google creates products, with beta versions and many iterations, according to reports. .

One Stadia employee told Wired: “I wonder how much the executives who are above the Stadia leadership understand what they got themselves into – the commitments made and about the commitments and the inability to deliver on those commitments.”

Google announced Stadia in November 2019, saying it would launch a Netflix-like video game platform and a new controller. He would also create his own games, he said. But Stadia said in early February that it would halt development of new games, while continuing to release third-party games.

“Building best-in-class games from scratch takes many years and a significant investment, and the cost is increasing exponentially,” Harrison said in his blog post.

Insider has reached out to Google for comment.