Google Stadia Indies are non-existent because Google isn't paying for them

“Where are the Google Stadia Indies,” you might ask if you cared slightly about the Alphabet-owned video game streaming service. “Where are the rest of the games as well,” you may also ask. 

Months after launch and the hyped streaming service from Google has almost fizzled out in a laughable “peh” as just 28 games lay in the sparse graveyard of Google’s streaming service.

With free to play games offering less players than their rival platforms without any cross-play functionality, everything is just going a little bit OUYA for Google.

In an article by Business Insider, we finally know why Stadia is treading along without making a considerable impact. Google isn’t paying for success; as with many Google projects they appear to just be waiting for success to roll in. Other Google projects get canned early.

In short, Google isn’t willing to slap the money down to pick up intriguing, thoughtful and popular indie titles for Stadia. Google Stadia Indies don’t exist because Google thinks developers will just come to their services, once again.

“We were approached by the Stadia team,” ane prominent indie developer told Business Insider. “Usually with that kind of thing, they lead with some kind of offer that would give you an incentive to go with them. [the incentive]  was kind of non-existent. That’s the short of it.”

“There are platforms you want to be on because they have an audience and you want to reach that audience,” another developer explained. “That’s what Steam is, or that’s what [Nintendo] Switch is. They have big groups on their platforms, and you want to be with those groups so they can play your games.”

Unlike those hugely successful platforms, Stadia’s playerbase is miniscule and waning. There’s no financial inventive, there’s no other deals, there are no players to buy the games. It’s looking like Stadia will go the way of Google Glass after all.