Virtual platforms, mobile apps, and all kinds of gadgets and devices have become a crucial part of our daily life, especially when it comes to killing boredom. The number of people signing up for accounts at online gaming platforms is rising every day and new games are being developed equally fast. Statistics show that four out of every five Android users use their mobile devices mostly for play reasons.
To net as many players as possible, in 2013 Google launched the Google Play gaming platform. It is available on the Android operating system, but some features (like Play Music) are available on iOS as well. The launch of Google Play was aimed at expanding the services to the countries where these weren’t available yet, as well as convert new users to the marketplace. If you haven’t yet taken the time to download this mobile app, you can get it from the Play store here.
Through Google Play Android app, developers can add new features that allow them to study and understand trends of mobile gaming and how they are progressing. Furthermore, they can also manage app’s features and collect users’ data, which is then safely stored in “the Cloud”, just like we do with all our articles from Customwriting, our work flows and scheduling plans.
In addition, the site allows users to see games they have played with the most recent ones appearing at the top. The tool also suggests the most popular apps so that interested users can try them.
Let’s dig into some of the most notable features of this platform, which are:
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Leaderboards
Virtual leaderboard is a feature aimed at displaying the statistics of players. The data is collected and displayed through the Google developer console. Leaderboard is a great tool for app developers, since it allows them follow up the number of people who have played your game and access their scores on the leaderboard. You can also see the percentage of product leads (users who have made in-app purchases) or those who have unlocked more achievements (meaning, spent way more time playing then average user). There is also a leaderboard version for players as well – loyal fans of the game like to check on their achievements and compete further.
You can also get rid of all suspicious scores appearing on the board by activating tamper protection button on the application’s console. To do this effectively, do not share leaderboard with other Android devices or use the management APIs.
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Ability to Save Players’ Data
With this feature, the data of each player is saved on the Google servers making it possible to resume a session from where you left, irrespective of the Android device you were using.
This became possible because the system now uploads user’s metadata to the cloud storage, from where other devices can access and sync it once they are logged in to their Gmail account. The saved data enables players to resume the game from where they stopped as it displays cover images and indicates the exact spot you had reached
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Game Gift Feature
The feature is used to encourage people to download a particular app. It enables a player to offer their friends a virtual object through the game. Furthermore, the tool allows users to ask for gifts from other players and to trade the same with others.
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Player Analytics
This feature helps a developer to understand the behaviors of players in the same way analytical tools help one to understand a step-by-step performance of a new web program. Therefore, through it, you can tell where players are encountering challenges and remove obstacles that might be hindering their progression.
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Ad-Mob interface
Ad-Mob is an advertisement network acquired by Google in 2009 at the cost of $750 million. Basically, it is an advertising support mechanism for add-on purchases within an app. It selectively targets those who have shown a higher probability of unlocking advanced features while ignoring those not interested.
The tool is very useful to mobile software developers as it allows them to make income by unlocking some cool premium features at a fee. Like in 2015, Google paid 7 billion dollars to web developers, but it did not break down this figure to show exactly how much went to gamers. Nevertheless, this must have been a huge chunk considering apps are the biggest source of Google’s revenue. Also, the feature enables developers to test and choose ads for their game.
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Audience Builder
Another ad-related tool that software developers can exploit is the audience builder. As the name suggests, the tool tracks user’s interactions by obtaining data from Google Analytics to generate a list of people who are more likely to play the game and unlock other premium features.
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Ability to Use a Second Screen While Playing
Ability to display the game on a second screen is something major software companies have been exploring. Being able to transfer what you are playing on a mobile device to another bigger screen is an exciting experience.
Google’s gameplay services enable gamers to create APIs for the second screen for Android television sets. Players too like this mobile app as it enables them to seamlessly switch their mobile apps into big screens and to automatically sync their progress status.
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Image courtesy of blucoat.com Cloud Data Saving Storage and its Security
- This is a popular feature as it enables an Android user to save their progress and later sync or retrieve it from servers and continue playing from where they stopped. Initially, the device could only support 512 Kilobytes of data per person, but after receiving many complaints, it was expanded to 1 Megabytes.
- The data saving feature also allows developers to include a short description of the stage at which the game was stopped so that users can proceed from the exact point they stopped at.
- All the data collected is securely stored in a write-protected drive in Google’s servers, meaning that no other application can modify or corrupt the stored information. Also, the system prevents users from accessing or manipulating the saved data.
- Sometimes data saving conflicts may arise if you are trying to save several instances of a game especially if it is opened in different devices, but this can be resolved easily on the console.
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Game Alerts
Any configurations or updates web developers implement to the game now get automatically checked before publishing. Google will alert you about the pending issues on the console and also shows you how to fix them.
As we have seen, there are several cool features on Google game’s console for us to incorporate into our development and gaming which will make the gaming experience smoother and more exciting. Let us know which are your favorites in the comments below!