Stadia Pro developers will get revenue depending on how often their games are played

Google has announced a new revenue system that it hopes will encourage developers to make their games available as part of the Stadia Pro subscription service.

Stadia Pro is a paid subscription that offers players a selection of ‘free’ games, store discounts and improved visual streaming quality.

Games currently available as part of a Pro subscription include Dead by Daylight, Hello Neighbor, Hitman 2 and Human Fall Flat.

As part of its Stadia Keynote for the Google for Games Developer Summit, strategic business development head Careen Yapp announced that starting this month, any new title that is added to Stadia Pro’s library will earn developers monthly revenue based on how many days players launch their games.

“Stadia Pro will give back 70% of monthly revenue to partners based upon engagement for active claimable Stadia Pro titles,” Yapp explained.

“To make this as easy as possible, engagement will be measured by session days. One user playing one Stadia Pro game twice on day one equals one session day. A user that plays a Stadia Pro game once on day one and once on day two equals two session days.”

The deal appears to favour service games that encourage players to play on a daily basis, as opposed to shorter narrative games that may not require repeat playthroughs once they’re beaten.

Further reading

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Epic CEO says Stadia has been ‘very significantly scaled back’

But Tim Sweeney rejected suggestions that Stadia had been shut down entirely

In May a Google executive dismissed suggestions that Stadia is struggling, claiming the service is “alive and well”.

Developer marketing lead Nate Ahearn told GamesIndustry.biz that the platform is doing fine, despite reports to the contrary.

“We’re well on our way to over 100 new games launching on Stadia in 2021, and we’re continuing to make Stadia a great place to play games on devices you already own,” Ahearn said.

Questioned in May during the Epic vs Apple court case, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said the Google Stadia service had been “significantly cut back”, as he understood it.