Update 5/24: Tom's Guide has updated its article with more accurate information about the Stadia Makers program. It also revealed some of Stadia's unique features.

Google Stadia has come a long way since its unveiling at GDC 2019. Initially, there was excitement in anticipation and then skepticism as to how well it would work. Then came the launch of Stadia, excited about how well it worked and skeptical about whether gamers really needed it.

Google's innovative cloud gaming platform suffered some setbacks in 2021, but the company recently claimed that the project is "alive and well." While that may be true, Google is unwilling to share a single piece of evidence that we can judge for ourselves.

First, a little background: in its initial Google Stadia review, Tom's Guide gave the platform a middling rating. While we were impressed with the game streaming capabilities, there were a thousand small inconveniences and the number of games was relatively small. It was also difficult to determine whether there really was a segment of the population that craved big-budget games but never wanted to buy a console or PC.

In the meantime, Stadia has worked out the most annoying bugs. Now there is relative equivalence between Chromecast, PC, and Android applications, and the controller works wirelessly everywhere; Stadia also continues to add features such as a search bar and free tiers. (You have to buy the game, but you don't have to pay a subscription fee.)

Still, it is hard to shake the impression that Stadia has had more setbacks than accomplishments recently; Google has closed down Stadia's first-party game development and lost many key personnel, including head of product John Justice. Stadia's head of developer marketing Nate Ahearn, discussed all of this in a wide-ranging interview with GamesIndustry.biz. Nevertheless, Ahearn insists that Stadia is "alive and well."

"More than 100 new games will launch on Stadia in 2021, continuing to make Stadia a great place to play games on the devices you already have," Ahearn said. The 100 upcoming games are from major studios such as Capcom, EA, Square Enix, and Ubisoft. A number of aspiring indie developers, known as "Stadia Makers," are also participating.

Ahearn was particularly optimistic about the Stadia Makers program. Launched by Google in 2020, this initiative forms a partnership between Google and indie developers. Through this program, Google will provide technical assistance, hardware, and even funding to up-and-coming developers. now that Stadia is no longer developing its own first-party titles, the Stadia Makers program will debut on Stadia before any other platform may become an important source of games that will debut on Stadia before any other platform.

"It will lead to more games that players will enjoy, by diverse voices, that tackle themes such as mental health, dystopian realities, and the human mind," says Ahern. For the independent studios that are part of Stadia Makers, "2021 will see more players instantly experiencing games through the cloud.

Ahearn also correctly points out that Stadia has had no trouble obtaining new and recent hit games, such as "Resident Evil 7: Resident Evil Village" and "Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order."

It is an interesting interview and well worth a read if you have any interest (positive or negative) in Stadia's ups and downs. There are three main ideas that are worth mentioning: the Stadia Makers program, the ease of access to hot new games, and the idea that users need to overcome their initial resistance to cloud gaming. While these ideas have merit, one measure of Stadia's overall health - how many people are playing - remains to be seen.

When Google discontinued development of first-party titles for Stadia, I wrote an op-ed entitled "Google Stadia was never going to work". In it, I pointed out that a gaming platform is only as good as its player base. In fact, we have no idea how many people play (or buy) Stadia games, and never have; Google has never made these numbers public, and there is little way to estimate them.

But in my writing, I at least tried. I calculated on a napkin that PS5 had at least four times as many players as the stadium. I argued that if a tremendous number of people wanted to play the stadia game, they would have shown up already.

Of course, this does not invalidate Ahearn's point about early adoption. It is much easier to sell a fifth iteration of a popular console to customers than an entirely new technology that relies almost entirely on Google's servers.

At the same time, stadia without major exclusive titles or large communities have relatively few advantages over more traditional systems. In fact, they are hundreds to thousands of dollars cheaper. However, the users that Stadia is targeting, at least as far as we know, are less inclined to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for their own proprietary gaming system.

Let's also remember that when an investor asked CD Projekt Red how many Stadia subscribers had purchased "Cyberpunk 2077," the executive just laughed.

When Stadia debuted, it was hard to play the game on any screen in the house. Now, with Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now, you can do essentially the same thing, except you still have the option to download games and play them on your own hardware. Xbox Cloud Gaming is one of the few games on the Stadia Pro number, and in fact, arguably surpasses Stadia because it also incorporates Xbox Game Pass, which allows you to play hundreds of games for a monthly fee.

So is Stadia really "alive and well"? It depends on how you evaluate it. The service is up and running, functioning as promised, with many new games on the horizon. The system will offer several timed exclusive services in the not-too-distant future, and there are still plenty of experienced Google employees at the helm.

In the meantime, it remains to be seen how many people will play Stadia's games and how the service intends to differentiate itself from its competitors.

(A Google representative noted that Stadia still offers Stream Connect and State Share, which other platforms do not. It is up to the individual player to decide if these features are an advantage to purchasing games on Stadia instead of a competing platform.)

One thing is certain: whether Stadia succeeds or fails, its early days will one day make it an attractive postmortem.