Given our track record, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we here at the Noisecast have super future-predicting powers. Today’s oracle? Google Games, which Google just announced on the official Google Blog, currently rolling out to users.
During Episode 39 of the Noisecast, we discussed how we’d like to see games implemented on Google. Among our requests, we wanted the ability to easily ignore games if we like (we’re looking at you, Facebook), a nice selection of games, and for Google to use their weight to court developers. If the blog post is any indication, they hit every single point.
From the official Google blog:
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. 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.
This is perhaps the most promising feature of games on Google+. If you’ve been on Facebook ever, you’ve had your notifications mucked up with requests for Farmville, Vampires vs. Zombies, and Procrastinatotron 9001. By sandboxing games to a single tab (where they should be), Google+ makes sure you only hear about games when you go to play games.
Google’s also been working with game devs to ensure there’s a supply of games right off the bat, including, you guessed it, Angry Birds. Which actually makes the third platform made by Google that Angry Birds is available for. The others being Android and Chrome OS. This is getting silly. Still, if you were staying away from Google+ because there just wasn’t enough to waste time on with the service, your needs are about to be fulfilled.
Source: Official Google Blog
I like that they went about adding games in such a way as to not to be intrusive to those who don’t want anything to do with games. Well done Google, Well done.