Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. Features

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Google Play is helping developers meet gamers where they are

By

Google Play is setting the stage for a big year of growth in mobile and cross-platform gaming, with several new initiatives to help and encourage developers to build even more exciting and engaging gaming experiences.

The increased power of modern smartphones as gaming powerhouses has allowed for the creation of more sophisticated mobile games, many of which can easily be called “console-quality.” However, this has also given rise to more demand from players to be able to enjoy these gaming experiences on a larger screen.

Screenshot of Windows PC with multiple windows showing Asphalt 9 on Google Games for PC.
Google

The ability to run Android apps on Chromebooks, introduced in 2016, partially addressed this, but limitations in Chrome OS and lower-end Chromebook hardware meant this didn’t always provide the best gaming experience.

Recommended Videos

Nevertheless, gameplay on Chromebooks has been on the rise over the past year, with Google reporting that Android usage on Chrome OS grew by 50% in 2021 over the previous year — and that this was driven primarily by games.

Related

So, it’s probably not a big surprise that Google wants to take that experience even further. At The Game Awards 2021 in December, Google surprised us with a teaser video, revealing that Google Play Games would be coming to Windows PCs in 2022.

While that very brief announcement didn’t offer us much detail, it wasn’t long before the first Google Play Games for PC beta arrived. In January, Google opened sign-ups for gamers in Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to begin testing the new service with a handful of games.

The number of titles available may still be small, but it’s an impressive collection to kick things off, including Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Summoners War, State of Survival: The Joker Collaboration, and Three Kingdoms Tactics.

More importantly, this isn’t just a way to play your favorite Google Play games on a Windows PC. Rather, it’s part of Google’s new embrace and extend philosophy to “meet players where they are.”

Specifically, Google wants to ensure that gamers get a seamless, “pick-up-and-play” experience as they move between platforms, whether that’s on a Google Pixel 6, Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, Chromebook, or Windows PC.

Building great experiences

To kick off this week’s Google for Games Developer Summit, we had the opportunity to speak with Leo Olebe, Google’s Managing Director of Play Partnerships for Games, about his vision for the future of Google Play Games, and what Google is doing to empower developers to build even better gaming experiences.

Olebe came to Google last May after serving for nearly six years as the Senior Global Director of Games Partnerships for Facebook. He also sits on the board of Games for Change, an organization that aims to empower game creators and social innovators to use their games to drive real-world change and help make the world a better place.

Needless to say, Olebe understands the mobile game industry and the needs of both gamers and developers quite well. He had some interesting things to share about how Google is working to help developers succeed on Google Play, and in turn, build even better gaming experiences for their players.

A surprising number of developers began expressing interest almost immediately following the teaser announcement at The Game Awards, and it’s “grown exponentially” since then.

Although Google Play Games for PC has been rolling out slowly with only a few games, that shouldn’t be taken as a sign of poor uptake by developers. According to Olebe, a surprising number of developers began expressing interest almost immediately following the teaser announcement at The Game Awards, and it’s “grown exponentially” since then.

It’s not just the big game developers that are on board, either. Olebe tells us that Google has many smaller indie devs who are already working on optimizing their games for PCs, and Google is actively working to provide them with the resources and tools they need to accomplish this transition.

While the amount of effort required to adapt mobile games for PC will likely vary widely between games, Olebe shared that they’ve had some developers “onboard in as little as a week.” Others take a bit longer, but again, the Google Play team is “there to support developers every step of the way.”

As any long-time mobile gamer knows, moving a game between such different platforms can often result in a less than ideal experience. The early days of mobile gaming demonstrated how many PC and console games didn’t always translate well to a touchscreen interface, and today the opposite is often true.

Fortunately, Google isn’t going to let developers get away with mediocre ports just to deliver more PC-compatible titles. According to Olebe, “all games that are brought to the Google Play platform [should follow] a set of standards, policies, and best practices […] to get the most out of Google Play.” Minimum standards include such things as supporting keyboard and mouse controls, and the x86 architecture. The goal here is clearly quality over quantity, and Google is making these best practices as clear and easy as possible for developers.

Banner from Google for Games Developer Summit 2022 showing an animated fantasy landscape.
Google

For larger developers, Google offers the Google Play Partner Program for Games, tailored for the unique needs of developers at this scale. However, it also has a number of other programs available to even the smallest indie developers. As part of this year’s Games Developer Summit, Google is also announcing a new Android Game Development Extension that will allow game developers to build directly for Android from within Visual Studio, including cross-compatibility with Android Studio.

Bigger games, larger screens

Olebe also tells us that there’s already been a marked shift by developers over the past couple of years to prioritize larger screens, and “users on Chromebooks are taking notice.” This has driven increased gaming on Chromebooks and opened up more opportunities for Android game developers to “reach more players where they are.”

What’s perhaps more interesting is that Google Play Games for PC also isn’t just about supplementing the mobile gaming experience. “PC-first” gamers can play Android games on Windows without the need to ever install the game on their mobile device. “I imagine that there will be mobile games that people discover and try on PC that maybe they hadn’t tried before,” Olebe told us.

Google’s “ecosystem approach” has also been paying off in a similar way.

The Google Play team also sees a great deal of success from partnering “deeply” with game developers, Olebe notes, making sure they have all the tools and support needed in the Android Game Development Kit to build games and metrics like Android Vitals and the Developer Reporting API to keep track of how their games are doing.

Google’s “ecosystem approach” has also been paying off in a similar way. This includes the new Android App Bundle format and the Play as You Download feature introduced in Android 12 to allow players to download and start playing a new game in seconds, as well as value-added features like Play Points and Play Pass.

Going forward into 2022, Olebe suggests three priorities that Android game developers should look to: Game quality, multi-screen gaming, and advanced tools in Google Play like pre-registration, early access, and Play points. “The Android ecosystem is large, and developers get the most out of their games running well on more devices with all the tools and services we’ve made,” Olebe notes, adding for developers that “Google Play has a wealth of tools that help you with promoting and increasing the commercial success for your game.”

“Gamers are always looking for more opportunities to find and play great games,” Olebe said. “They will be happy if they can find new experiences, or continue existing ones. Google Play understands that many — nay most — are playing on multiple platforms. We want gamers to be able to find great Google Play experiences no matter what device or form factor they are on.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jesse Hollington
Jesse Hollington
Mobile Writer
Jesse has been a technology enthusiast for his entire life — he probably would have been born with an iPhone in his hand…
Heroes of Middle-Earth isn’t afraid to play with Lord of the Rings canon
An evil Galadriel in Heroes of Middle-Earth

The Lord of the Rings franchise has a storied history in almost every entertainment medium, and we are entering a new era for its film and gaming efforts. As Amazon continues to produce The Rings of Power, Middle-Earth Enterprises has been acquired by Embracer Group. Instead of all of The Lord of Rings' games being made by Warner Bros., which had been the case for some time, we are now seeing lots of studios make games in the Lord of the Rings universe, providing their own spin on the idea. While The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is doing that on consoles this month, mobile game players are also getting a brand new game.
The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-Earth is on the way from Capital Games and EA, and I attended a preview event for the game ahead of its launch on May 10. This game takes the character-collecting RPG approach established through its previous game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and gives it a Middle-Earth makeover. What’s most intriguing about the title, though, is that it’s not afraid to ask “What if?” while playing around in the world of this long-running franchise.
What if?
When it comes to gameplay, my brief playtime with Heroes of Middle-Earth didn’t surprise me. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a mobile character-collecting RPG set in The Lord of the Rings universe. Still, the character-based approach allows Capital Games to play in The Lord of the Rings sandbox in ways few creatives have been able to. It has more freedom to craft more experimental scenarios with the franchise's iconic characters, as it’s not as concerned with falling in line with lore.

The premise is that players have discovered a new Ring of Power, which they must use to keep The Lord of the Rings timeline intact as a mysterious enemy is trying to throw it in disarray. That setup means that the game can create scenarios that don’t necessarily align with the Middle-Earth canon. Players can make characters from different time periods, races, and allegiances team up in a way that wouldn’t work anywhere else. They’ll encounter a Galadriel who was corrupted by the Ring and other characters who may have strayed from the path laid for them in the books and films. Post-launch, some of these alternate versions of characters will eventually become playable as well.
In the age of the multiverse story in media, these kinds of “What if?” scenarios make for a novel The Lord of the Rings game set pieces and give the developers plenty of room to come up with future characters for players to collect. In a press roundtable, Heroes of Middle-Earth Design Director Jay Ambrosini was undoubtedly enthusiastic about these concepts but said the team is also making sure any of these ideas and alternate timelines that they do pursue feeling respectful toward the world J.R.R. Tolkien established.
“There are so many characters that you look at and see the small little decisions that happen and affect them, and it’s so fun to think about what happens if they made the other decision,” Ambrosini says. “They are fun things to explore and talk about, but the most important thing to us is that we’re telling a genuine Tolkien story and that we’re very faithful to the laws of the world that exist. Good deeds are rewarded with goodness; bad deeds are rewarded with bad things happening. We’re making sure that we’re appreciating and celebrating those pieces of Tolkien’s work.”

Read more
3 big things I need to see from the next PlayStation Showcase
Peter and Miles from Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

It’s that time of the year again when industry insiders are teasing that a big PlayStation Showcase will happen around June. A third-party focused State of Play happened in 2022, but now Video Games Chronicle’s Andy Robinson and Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb are both suggesting that a more first-party oriented "Showcase" could be on the way sometime during the next month, potentially during the week of May 25.
PlayStation has had a rough start to 2023, with console exclusive Forspoken garnering mixed reviews, the PlayStation VR2 impressing critics while underperforming in sales, and The Last of Us Part 1’s PC port being broken at launch. With only Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 confirmed to be on the horizon for 2023, Sony has a lot to prove during its next showcase. There are three specific things I need to see from Sony if that PlayStation Showcase does come to fruition.
Give PSVR2 purpose
The PlayStation VR2 is an impressive piece of virtual reality technology, but it lacks killer apps outside of Horizon: Call of the Mountain. New game releases for the headset have been slow since its February 2022 launch, which is likely why the $550 headset has underperformed. Sony has opted to mainly relegate PSVR2 to State of Plays or PlayStation Blog posts, but it needs to revitalize excitement for the platform by giving some of its games a spotlight in a big PlayStation Showcase.

Hopefully, there’s more on the way in terms of new AAA VR exclusives from first-party studios, as well as much-demanded ports like Half-Life: Alyx. Already announced PSVR2 games like Journey to Foundation and Synapse could also use release dates. A PlayStation Showcase is the perfect time for Sony to put out a clear road map for PSVR2’s future game library, just as the September 2021 PlayStation did for PS5. Give me a reason to strap on that headset yet again.
Flesh out the system’s 2023 exclusives lineup
PS5 needs a strong lineup for this fall as well. With the exception of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, things look pretty barren for PS5 this year after the launch of Final Fantasy XVI. Several previously announced PS5 games still lack concrete release dates and could arrive in the second half of this year. It’d be nice to get a clearer picture of Sony’s PS5 game lineup for the rest of the year; hopefully, it includes titles like Stellar Blade, the Silent Hill 2 remake, Lost Soul Aside, Death Stranding 2, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Read more
Apple and Google are teaming up to make tracking devices less creepy
Apple AirTag lifestyle image.

Apple and Google are partnering to develop a new standard for Bluetooth tracking devices that seeks to stop malicious stalking and other abusive use of gadgets like the Apple AirTag. Essentially, this would be a universal, OS-level tracker detection and alert system that will work uniformly across Android and iOS. The two companies are inviting stakeholders to review the proposal and submit their feedback within the next three months.

Once the feedback period is over, all the involved parties will work together to finalize the technical standardization, with the hope of releasing a market-ready version by the end of the year. Following the release and adoption by makers of tracking devices, the tech will be generally made available via a software update for Android and iOS devices.
Better late than never

Read more