Yesterday, at the Google for Games Developer Summit, Google announced the Stadia Makers program “is the first step into an expansion of self-publishing for experienced independent game developers” who want to publish their game on Stadia’s streaming service.
To date, Stadia has released more than 30 games since it was released in November 2019 with another 120 games coming this year, but overall that number is behind the leading platforms like Xbox who have more than 30 game releases planned in just the next 30-days.
Google acknowledged that there have been some growing pains along the way. For the launch, significantly more companies applied than were actually able to participate. Since the launch, they have been working to improve development tools and onboard new partnerships that will expand the opportunities for independent game studios to publish on Stadia.
To support the expansion of self-publishing, Stadia Makers has partnered with Unity, a leading gaming development platform that has a proven history in the gaming industry, powering more than 50% of all new games today. With this partnership, Unity will provide optimized support for Stadia, and participates in the program will receive technical assistance, free hardware if eligible participants and funding when developing for Stadia.
For game developers who are interested in Stadia Makers and want to self-publish, you can apply here. To be eligible, companies need to be using Unity 2019.3 or later and are planning on shipping their game by 2021.
