Google Cross-Platform Games

Android and iOS owners can soon settle who is better at games.

Google introduced a new version of its Google Play Games Services tool kit at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today. This update will enable studios to make multiplayer modes that can have iOS gamers playing against people on Android. This means that game companies can quickly connect their iOS and Android fans, which may increase retention since players could potentially have a bigger pool of friends playing together. And this might encourage more game development on Android which, with mobile gaming reaching $16 billion in 2013, is a major driver of revenue on smartphones and tablets.

“We want the whole world to play together,” Google developer advocate Todd Kerpelman said during last year’s GDC when they first introduced Google Play Games Services. “I know that’s a little bit touchy-feely — kids holding hands around the world — but at the core level, it’s really true. All of us on the team are gamers. By that I don’t mean that we just play games — we haven’t had a lot of time lately — it’s more that we understand that games are powerful.”

Google wants to get everyone on a single backend platform that will enable them to play together despite who makes the device they use. The Play Games Services can accomplish that. It lives totally in the cloud as an application programming interface (API), which games on any platform can access. To take advantage of the leaderboard and multiplayer features, players just need to log in with their Google+ account.