Google tapped God of War studio VP to run new California Stadia studio

[Cal Jeffrey]

In a nutshell: Google continues to chug ahead with its plans to expand its first-party development for games on the Stadia platform. In addition to its pickup of Typhoon Studios, the search giant has opened two additional studios under the Stadia Games and Entertainment umbrella with one being headed up by Good of War veteran Shannon Studstill.

Google has built another game development house to complement its recent acquisition of Typhoon Studios for designing first-party titles. The division is located in Playa Vista area of Los Angeles. Stadia head Jade Raymond announced the new studio on Wednesday.

"The new Playa Vista studio will focus on delivering exclusive games, using new gameplay mechanics, creative ways to play together and unique interaction models that we're just starting to explore," said Raymond.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Stadia Games and Entertainment has also poached Shannon Studstill to head the new office. Studstill was formerly the vice president of product development at Sony's Santa Monica Studio, also located in Playa Vista.

Studstill's resume includes games like The Order: 1886 and The Unfinished Swan. However, her real claim to fame comes from the God of War series where she was variously executive producer or senior director.

"I've been a fan of Shannon's for a long time and have admired her award-winning work leading Sony's Santa Monica Studio and the industry-defining franchises like God of War that have won fans all over the world," Raymond said of the talent acquisition. "She has an extensive background in product development and creative leadership, but most importantly, she's a visionary who, as the Studio Director, will lead and inspire the Playa Vista teams."

The new studio is also not likely the end of Google's efforts to churn out new and original content.

Back in October, Raymond told GamesIndustry.biz that Google plans to build a few studios for in-house development. In addition to the Playa Vista location, job listings indicate Stadia is also opening a division in Montréal, home to development units from several other gaming companies, including Ubisoft, EA, Eidos, and others. Google has not yet announced who would head up the Canada-based studio.

Masthead credit: Ascannio via Shutterstock

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[Aiibo]

So, acquiring talents... I guess it's better than acquiring whole studios just to ruin them like Microsoft and EA like to do.

 

[Red999]

By making it's own game, existing game studios will pulling out their games. it will be same as netflix which runs out of external contents

 

[OortCloud]

Another area for Google to make huge profits and pay no tax. It is estimated that in the UK alone Googles' tax avoidance amounts to £1.5 billion. Enough to pay for 60,000 NHS nurses. Don't be evil, be worse, be Google.