So you know how we reported last week that Jade Raymond, who has previously worked with Ubisoft and EA, had joined Google, and speculated that this might be for their gaming initiative? We were all right. Today during their GDC keynote, where Google unveiled the Stadia streaming platform, Google also announced Stadia Games and Entertainment, a brand new first party games studio by Google, which is being headed by Jade Raymond.
Bemusingly enough, the games studio was announced without any games. None were teased either, and it seems like Google plans to keep it that way until this Summer. That said, I would hope that Google would want to debut a killer-app for their new platform to help catch the attention of even those who would otherwise be disinterested in it—if that is the long-term plan, then Google is not showing its hand on that front just yet.
For now, all we can do is speculate on what kinds of games Raymond and her team will build for Stadia with Google.