Google needed proof of concept games. Little toys that showed, wow this is what cloud can do.
Like give me a neighborhood sized block with a level of simulation that rivals dwarf fortress and schedule tracking like shen mue, and branching paths etc. Now I realize that’s a huge order but just a block on a street in size, and say “go have fun”. Something with a level of agent tracking that would make a single cpu buckle (think the sims 3 when you’re trying to track a whole 8+ family), or a single destructible building down to the plaster, water pipes, etc that would be like red faction guerrilla but turned up to a million.
Basically little toys that would show this what you can do on a server farm vs a single box. People expected cyber punk 2077 to track 4000 npcs with individual schedules on last gen consoles, this could have done that. But ah well to the google graveyard.