A week before Google announced it was shutting down Stadia Games and Entertainment, a studio developing first-party games for Stadia, executives praised staff for making “great progress” and “building a diverse and talented team.”.

According to a report from Kotaku, citing four sources with knowledge of the situation, Google Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison was the one who sent out the seemingly optimistic email.

Then came mass layoffs about a week later, shocking developers.

In a blog post about a week later, however, Harrison announced that Google would no longer be investing in developing first-party content for its video game streaming platform.

Following the announcement, Stadia developers allegedly confronted Harrison about his previous email where he praised the in-house studio.

Harrison reportedly expressed his regret over the misleading statements, despite already knowing the developers would be out of a job.

XDA » News Brief » Google exec reportedly praised Stadia game studios right before shutting them down.