Google has zero vision when it comes to gaming. Time and time again, the company fails to interest anyone in its gaming efforts. From its inability to entice anyone with cloud gaming through Stadia (which absolutely blew up in its face), to giving up on its gaming Chromebooks, having recently announced its ditching of Chrome OS’s Steam beta support. Google and gaming are like oil and water.
One of the best examples of how little Google understands gaming and gamers is the Play Store, which is filled with absolute trash: abusive games designed to empty wallets instead of providing fun. This may be lucrative for Google, but it’s a total shitshow for gamers. Apparently, Google would like to change this perception, but instead of cleaning up the store and fixing discovery. Google’s oh-so innovative idea is to integrate social aspects into Play Games (via 9to5Google).
Google wants to emulate Steam without any of the hard work of maintaining a store worth using
Source: Google
Google recently emailed its Play Games users (email below), alerting them to changes coming to Play Game profiles. Basically, Google is taking a page out of Steam’s book and will offer gaming stats and social features on the Play Store through Play Games. Perhaps the gacha gamers out there will appreciate this, but it’s unlikely the upcoming changes will appeal to hardcore gamers desperately seeking quality titles, since Google prefers to promote absolute slop over games that deserve recognition.
We’ll soon update the way gamer profiles work on Google Play. Starting on September 23rd, we’ll begin updating Play Games profiles, including yours. Your profile will include your gaming stats and milestones from games you’ve installed from Google Play and new social features. Your profile and related features will soon show up right on Google Play so it’s easier to access all of our gaming offerings. To power features and services related to your gaming profile, Google will collect information about your game usage, such as which games you’ve played and when you’ve played them. We’ll also use this data to improve the Google Play gaming experience. Just like today, developers may receive information about your profile and your activity and purchases in their game to help them provide and improve the game, subject to their privacy policies. Developers may also send data to Google about your activity in their games, such as your achievements and game progress. Learn more When we update your profile, we’ll use your existing profile visibility settings as the default settings for your updated profile. For example, if your current profile is set to “visible to everyone,” then information about your updated profile will also be visible to everyone. You can learn more about or update your current profile visibility settings here. Your profile will be updated automatically, so you don’t need to take any action. Remember that you can delete your Play Games profile from your Google Account at any time. Learn more You can also delete your Google Account entirely. Deleting your Google Account will delete all data and content in that account, like emails, files and photos. We’re excited to show you your new integrated gaming experience and look forward to seeing you on Google Play.
Once again, Google is taking yet another half-assed approach to improving the Play Store by adding something nobody has ever asked for: social features. Meanwhile, I’ve spent the better part of a decade covering how useless the Play Store is, and still, nothing changes with the arduous navigation that results in the impossibility of finding any diamonds in the rough.
Discoverability on the Play Store has been an issue for too many years to count, and clearly, Google doesn’t want to do anything about it. The company would rather add superficial features that mimic successful storefronts, like Steam, without doing any of the hard work of maintaining a store that people actually want to visit.
You can’t simply copy bits and pieces of Steam and expect success. Valve is a privately owned company, which means it doesn’t have to kowtow to a board and chase easy money; instead, Valve has spent the last twenty-some-odd years slowly improving Steam to build it into what it is today — a consumer-friendly store that’s also developer-friendly. The Play Store doesn’t come close to emulating either of these traits. In other words, Google is putting lipstick on a pig with its new social Play Store endeavor. It will fail just like the rest of Google’s attempts to appeal to gamers.
