At the Google For Games Developer Summit this morning, Google touches on a wide range of game-related topics for its Android and Stadia platforms. Much of the changes coming seem to be focused on getting games into people’s hands quicker and more easily. On the Android side of things, a big chunk of this revolves around the play as you download feature. For those unaware of its existence, it’s just like it sounds. You can start downloading a game on Android and then begin playing it before it’s finished. Much like other game clients and platforms, the game will download an initial necessary segment of the game files first. Once the download pass this threshold, game files will continue to download in the background while players dive in.
Play As You Download will require Android 12
Naturally, this will require users to have Android 12 installed on their devices. Since this is a feature that Google introduced with Android 12. Luckily more and more manufacturers are pushing Android 12 out to devices. So the pool of users with compatible phones won’t be exceedingly small before too long. Google doesn’t mention anything about an official rollout, unfortunately. So for now uses will have to stick with downloading full games before they’re able to play. On the developer side of things, Google says that developers would need to make minimal changes to their underlying implementations to get things to work. Highlighting that setting up your games to be playable as downloads continue in the background is a simple process. Plus it allows players to engage with your content more quickly. Basically, it’s positioned as a win-win. Developers don’t have to do a lot of extra work, and they get players to start playing their games faster. Which could translate to better engagement. Google is already testing this feature with over 180 games too. That’s a drop in the bucket though when compared to how many games are already available on Android.
