Jade Raymond is heading Google's first-party game studio

Ubisoft and EA veteran Jade Raymond announced last week that she had joined Google as a company vice president, but her specific role at the company wasn't known. Today she revealed at GDC that she will head up Stadia Games and Entertainment, Google's first-party development studio, which will make games exclusively for the company's new Stadia platform. 

"As the head of Stadia Games and Entertainment, I will not only be bringing first party game studios to reimagine the new generation of games. Our team will also be working with external developers to make all of the bleeding edge Google technology you've seen here today available to partner studios big and small," Raymond said on the stage. "We are committed to going down a bold path, learning what is working best, and sharing key tools and tech so that we can take games to the next level together." 

Raymond provided no hints as to what the studio is currently working on, but Stadia is expected to go live later this year so I expect we'll see something soon.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.