Stadia vice president and head of product John Justice has left Google. Justice had joined the company in 2019 and was responsible for the consumer experience for Stadia.
“We can confirm John is no longer with Google and we wish him well on his next step,” Google told 9to5Google.
John Justice oversaw the buyer experience for Stadia and has previously talked how the future of Google Stadia will be. Following intense competition from Microsoft and Sony with the release of their most recent generation of video game consoles (and the establishment of other cloud-streaming platforms), Stadia began grasping at promotions and deals to convince new users to buy into the fantasy of Google Stadia cloud gaming. Back in February, Google revealed it was shutting down the doors to its Stadia game studio, turning its back on a commitment to develop large-scale video games in-house.
Justice’s departure brings in uncertainties at Google’s cloud-based gaming arm. Earlier this year Google shared it would not invest the internal development of games for Stadia. The announcement had come back as a surprise for Stadia developers as just a week before the announcement, Google Stadia VP and GM Phil Harrison had lauded the “great progress” the studios had made.