Google Play Games is a multi-platform gaming experience built and operated by

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

featuring seamless gameplay across PCs, Chromebooks and mobile devices. Google Play Games for PC Beta launched in 2022 with a curated set of Android games optimized for PCs &

Chromebooks A Chromebook (sometimes stylized in lowercase as chromebook) is a laptop or tablet running the Linux-based ChromeOS as its operating system. Initially designed to heavily rely on web applications for tasks using the Google Chrome browser, Chromeb ...

. Google Play Games on mobile features instant play, gamer profiles, and achievements. The user gamer profile syncs across Google Play Games on PCs and mobile devices.

History

The Google Play Games service was introduced at the

Google I/O Google I/O (or simply I/O) is an annual developer conference held by Google in Mountain View, California. "I/O" stands for Input/Output, as well as the slogan "Innovation in the Open". The event's format is similar to Google Developer Day. Hi ...

2013 Developer Conference, and the standalone Google Play Games

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

was launched for Android on July 24, 2013. Andrew Webster of ''

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media ...

'' compared Google Play Games to

Game Center Game Center is a service by Apple that allows users to play and challenge friends when playing online multiplayer social gaming network games. Games can now share multiplayer functionality between the Mac and iOS versions of the app. Game C ...

, a similar gaming network for users of

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

's own

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

operating system. Google Play Games has received updates over the years since its launch, including a screen-recording feature, custom gamer IDs, built-in games, and an arcade for game discovery. Real-time and turn-based multiplayer services have been deprecated since September 16, 2019. Support for these API functions ended on March 31, 2020. On December 9, 2021 at

The Game Awards The Game Awards is an annual awards ceremony honoring achievements in the video game industry. Established in 2014, the shows are produced and hosted by game journalist Geoff Keighley, who worked on its predecessor, the Spike Video Game Awards ...

, Google announced that Google Play Games beta would launch in early 2022, bringing Android games to Windows PCs and laptops. On January 19, 2022, Google Play Games officially rolled out a beta experience of the product with a select catalog of games to a waitlist of users in Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The beta rollout continued on August 25, 2022 by making Google Play Games beta available for download to all players in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Australia with an expanded catalog of game titles. On November 2, 2022, global expansion of Google Play Games beta continued and launched to all users in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore. The minimum specification requirements to run Google Play Games are currently for players who have a PC running Windows 10 or later with an integrated graphics card & quad-core CPU that can access Google Play Games beta (previously octo-core CPU).

References

External links

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Google Play Games on PC
* {{Google Inc. Android (operating system) software Play Games Games Products introduced in 2013 2013 software