After Google decided to quit making its own games for the Google Stadia service, Jade Raymond, who was in charge of creating said exclusive games, left to start up her own studio, Haven. Currently, Haven is already working with Sony on a brand new IP for PlayStation and, earlier today, it's been discovered that the studio has recruited six new staff members for key positions. Good news for Haven, but what's peculiar is that all six of them, much like Raymond, had also left Google.
As detailed on the ResetEra forum and reported on by IGN, the six new employees apparently joined within the last month or so and all held important roles at Google, roles specifically involved with Stadia. The first is Sebastien Paul, former general manager of Google's Stadia Games, who is now one of Haven's co-founders. Second is Corey May, who was Stadia's head of creative services and publishing and is now Haven's world/IP director.
Third is Stadia's staff UX researcher Jonathan Dankoff, who is now Haven's insight director. Fourth is Pierre-Marc Berube, who joined as a software engineer after serving as a graphics programmer at Stadia. And finally, there are Erwann Le Rouzic and Francis Denoncourt, who will serve as concept artists.
Six former Stadia employees jumping ship to work at Haven is interesting enough, but this comes only a day after it was discovered that Stadia's vice president had also quit the company for undisclosed reasons. At the time of writing, there's nothing to suggest that he also left to join Haven. The departure of one employee is one thing, but seven within roughly the same time frame is rather disconcerting and makes it easy to assume that things aren't going smoothly over at Stadia.
It's possible that Google's decision to shut down its development studios played a factor in these employees' decisions to leave for Haven instead. At the time, anonymous sources suggested that poor management at the company resulted in the closures, with many employees being less than thrilled with the sudden news. What was even worse was that employees had been praised a week before the news broke, meaning they were ultimately misled.
Stadia has been unfortunately saddled with a rather sour reputation, making it an easy target for mockery and scorn. However, it doesn't sound as if Google is ready to give up on the service yet. It still intends to make more games available on Stadia, as well as incorporate more features. Most recently, it finally added a search bar to Stadia, something many assumed would have been available when it launched.