The closure of Stadia does not surprise anyone, probably not even the employees of Google who were still working on the service. But even suspecting this disastrous fate, the news was necessarily badly digested within the team, since it is not known if these people will be relocated to other Google services or if they will lose their jobs. Now imagine that the announcement was particularly hard to hear when those same employees were only notified hours before the public announcement.
The high class, Phil, the high class
This is reported by the 9to5Google site, which includes an email from Phil Harrison shared on Reddit anonymously. The latter was sent two hours before the public announcement, to warn all employees of a large urgent meeting :
” We’ll be hosting a Stadia team meeting today, September 29 at 8:30 a.m. PT to share some important updates with everyone. Our apologies for this short notice. We would appreciate it if you would prioritize this meeting or contact your manager afterwards if you are unable to make it. The details have been added to your calendars. This will be a virtual meeting only, so please join us wherever you are today. »
Employees only learned the news 45 minutes before the rest of the world. Funny way to operate (not to say despicable), which unfortunately recalls what Phil Harrison and the other leaders of Stadia were able to do when the internal studios of the service were closed.
Clearly, communication was not Google’s strong point and we imagine that this is only one of the many problems that explain this resounding failure of Stadia.