Developer’s GDC billboard pokes at despised former Google Stadia exec

“Google wanted games that only worked in the cloud—which don’t exist,” Raccoon Logic co-founder & creative director Alex Hutchinson told VGC in an August interview. “They were asking us to deliver the kind of games built by 400 to 600 people, huge Marvel license games and Star Wars tie-ins. They said if you make the game and it’s great with 25 people, then we’ll let you hire 500 artists, which is not how it works. No one was talking the same language.”

gunther harrison , your days are numbered!! pic.twitter.com/j3e4kqz9In

— Revenge of the Savage Planet (@SavagePlanetHub) November 27, 2024

Raccoon Logic’s new San Francisco billboard includes a QR code that directs visitors to a promotional page for Revenge of the Savage Planet, featuring the pithy sympathy message that “We got fired by him as well!” The site promises a donation to the Canadian Mental Health Association for each person who scans the billboard; as of this writing, those donations sit below $2,500.

Harrison served as the very public face of Stadia shortly after his hiring in 2018 when the service was still being teased as “Project Stream.” He was a main presenter on a GDC stage almost exactly six years ago when Google revealed the Stadia name and promised that the streaming service would be “the future of games.” By 2020, though, Harrison had stopped tweeting or appearing in promotional videos, finally leaving the company in 2023.

Before the ill-fated Stadia, Harrison helped lead Sony’s gaming efforts during the troubled launch of the PlayStation 3, at one point going so far as to brag that “nobody will ever use 100 percent of [the PS3’s] capability.” He then worked in Microsoft’s gaming division during the disastrous rollout of the Xbox One and its confused used game policies.

Since leaving Google, Harrison has yet to announce a new role on his LinkedIn page.