Saturday, August 13, 2011

Google | Google+ Adds Games, And Facebook Is Responding

Well, Google just announced it will add games to its recently launched Google+ social network. And already Facebook is responding with new gaming features in what is poised to become a heated competition between the search giant and the social-media darling.

"With the Google+ project, we want to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web. But sharing is about more than just conversations," said Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering at Google. "The experiences we have together are just as important to our relationships. We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life."

Play, Share, Ignore

To Gundotra, that last statement means giving you control over when you see games, how you play them, and with whom you share your experiences. Games in Google+ are there when you want them and gone when you don't. That's a little different than Facebook, which tends to clutter news feeds with a stream of rapid-fire social-gaming accomplishments and invitations from friends to join the fun.

"When you're ready to play, the Games page is waiting -- click the games button at the top of your stream. You can see the latest game updates from your circles, browse the invites you've received, and check out games that people you know have played recently," Gundotra explained. "The Games page is also where your game accomplishments will appear. So you can comfortably share your latest high score -- your circles will only see the updates when they're interested in playing games, too."

By contrast, if you aren't interested in games, Google+ makes it easy to ignore them. If games aren't on the agenda for the day, your stream will stay focused on conversations with friends. Google+ is launching with 16 games, including Zynga Poker, Bubble Island, Angry Birds, and Bejeweled Blitz.

Developer-Friendly

"Games have long been rumored to be a part of Google's social strategy. The company observed the success of social gaming on Facebook and is now introducing it -- as expected -- on Google+," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence.

Sterling hasn't yet played any of the games, so he reserved judgment on the user experience. However, he said, Google is trying to make games more developer-friendly by taking a significantly lower commission on transactions.

"If Google+ continues to grow and holds on to its audience, we should see its gaming platform become quite successful," Sterling said. "In the same way that mobile-app developers want more than one platform to work with, game developers will equally welcome a new platform as a hedge or diversification strategy vis-a-vis Facebook."

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