Google announces Stadia Makers program for indie devs

Google has officially announced its Stadia Makers program for the Google Stadia, a program which the company hopes will be the “first step into an expansion of self-publishing for experienced independent game developers.”

Since the Stadia’s launch in November 2019, more than 30 games and 60 game updates have been launched on the service. Another 120 games are expected to ship in 2020.

The Stadia Makers program will see Google partnering with Unity to help those wanting to bring their games to Google’s game streaming service.

In order to be eligible, Google is looking for developers who are building their game using Unity 2019.3 or later and expecting to ship in 2020 or 2021. As part of the deal, devs will increase the game’s reach by adding Stadia to the list of launch-day platforms.

Google says that developers who want to join the Stadia Makers program will get to enjoy the following benefits:

Technical Assistance: The experts at Unity are committed to providing developers in the Stadia Makers program with a technical support structure that helps their projects meet targeted alpha, beta, certification, and launch dates.

Free Development Hardware: Stadia Makers participants are eligible to receive up to five physical development kits depending on team size and structure.

Funding: There’s a very real financial consideration when it comes to developing across platforms, and Stadia will offset some of those costs.

If you want to be part of the Stadia Makers program, you can follow the link here to apply. Just be aware that dev kits won’t be rolling out to eligible applicants until summer 2019, those in the US will require a corporate entity and an Employer Tax ID Number, and all applicants are required to provide a company domain email address.