Google targeting cross-progression for all Stadia games

Head of product says “next-gen is all about openness”

Google wants all Stadia games to support cross-play and cross-progression.

Speaking to StadiaCast in a video interview, Google VP and Stadia head of product John Justice said developers are “pretty open” to the idea of transferring game saves between platforms, but that “not every game platform is wholly on board”.

“We are trying to do that with every single title we’re bringing to Stadia, so that’s something that we see as a key piece of next-gen,” he said. “So we’re trying to push that next-gen is all about openness, it’s about being able to play across your friends groups, it’s about taking down these walled gardens, it’s about being able to keep your progression wherever it is you are.

“Whether it’s a single player or a multiplayer [game] you want to keep that progress going, so we’re trying to get that everywhere. Not every game platform is wholly on board with this, and some of them are on board with it for some titles and not for others, so we are pushing it forward, we’re working with developers and we’re trying to move the rest of the game platforms there.”

Asked if developers can decide if cross-progression is a feature they’d like implemented on a game-by-game basis, Justice said: “We are pushing them pretty seriously. If they’ve got a really good reason not to do it, I think we’d listen to them and talk to them about it, but it’s something that by default, we want everywhere. And so far, the developers are pretty open to it.

“The one place where we’ve got to work out some details are, there are some places where, [on] some platforms there might be more cheating than on others and so working out, hey, are you going to go and accept save files from that place where everybody modifies them? This might be more for multiplayer than anything else, but particularly for multiplayer games, how do we handle imports in those cases? But generally, we’re looking for cross-play, cross-progression and cross-everything.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Justice said letting the general public try the cloud gaming service is a “high priority” and so Google plans to offer free Stadia platform trials “a few months” after launch.

Google Stadia will launch in November 2019 with over 30 games available to purchase on day one.