Google Distances Itself From Stadia Director’s Controversial Tweet

Google distanced itself, Thursday, from the controversial tweet posted by the creative director of Stadia's Montreal Studio, who suggested that game streamers should be paying publishers and developers of games they stream.

Montreal Studio Creative Director of Stadia Games and Entertainment Alex Hutchinson, hired as part of the company’s acquisition of Typhoon Studios, tweeted on the state of game streaming. At present, several creators are anxious about the possibility that their content could be taken down due to copyright concerns, particularly on music.

Seemingly aiming to take the idea a level higher, Stadia’s creative director said that streamers should also fear “streaming games they didn’t pay for as well.” Hutchinson proposed that streamers should be paying a percentage of their income to the game’s publisher. The tweet was picked up by the gaming and streaming communities almost instantly.

Just after few hours, Hutchinson’s tweets got almost 10,000 retweets on the microblogging site. This surpasses the number of retweets on Google's active "Good Stuff" Stadia event, which only got combined retweets of 2,000. The intense exchange of opinions on Twitter caused Stadia to be a trending topic in the U.S.

Google distanced itself from the controversial commentary of Stadia’s creative director. "The recent tweets by Alex Hutchinson, creative director at the Montreal Studio of Stadia Games and Entertainment, do not reflect those of Stadia, YouTube or Google," notes the search engine giant in a statement issued to 9to5Google.

YouTube’s lead over “Gaming, Commerce, & Immersive,” Ryan Watts chimed in and shared about symbiotic relationship publishers and streamers should form. Based on the statement, it is apparent that Google intends to distance itself from this kind of comments. Interestingly, Hutchinson’s Twitter bio was updated recently and now says “all opinions my own.”