Google is set to announce its updated Google Play Games service at the Game Developers Conference 2014 later today, with an exciting set of new features, including support for turn-based and real-time cross-platform multiplayer games on iOS.
A key feature to the new update for Google Play Games is the ability to support turn-based and real-time multiplayer games between Android and iOS. To do this, Google will be updating its Play Games Unity Plug-in to support cross-platform multiplayer services. On top of that, the company will also introduce a Play Games C++ SDK for developers to support in-game achievements and leaderboards.
To further help out developers, Google Play Games will soon also support in-game gifts, similar to what can be seen on some Steam games. This new service will let players send virtual in-game “gifts” to anyone in their G+ circles, or manual player search. Besides that, the Play Store will introduce 18 revamped game categories, giving better visibility for users searching for a particular game genre.
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Finally, developers who include ads in their games will soon be able to advertise their own in-app purchases within their own games. With this, developers of free-to-play games with optional in-app purchases can now advertise any in-app promotions from within the game itself, making the advertising a lot more targeted and increasing the ads’ potential effectiveness.
The best bit of news for Android developers? Google hints that these additions are just “a taste” of what will be revealed later this week at GDC 2014.
(Source: Android Developers Blog)
