Google Play Game Services

onemorechance

Google Play Game Services.

To take advantage of their multiplayer games api, does it require players to log-in with a google plus account? i.e. their google (gmail) etc. will not be enough, they will need to create a google + profile if they have not already.

I know that it's all one account for all google services, but I expect that many users won't have or want to set up a google + profile.

Edit:

It seems so:

To use Google Play Games branding elements in a game, and to officially support Google Play game services, a game must meet these requirements:

Minimum features
Implement Google+ Sign-in according to the platform your game is running on (Android, iOS).
...

Branding Guidelines

Great API, but being used to drive up Google+ numbers. I wonder will that be seen as a hindrance by users, and how much of a profile might they need to set-up before being able to use a game developed using the API.

b.gud

onemorechance wrote: »

Google Play Game Services.

To take advantage of their multiplayer games api, does it require players to log-in with a google plus account? i.e. their google (gmail) etc. will not be enough, they will need to create a google + profile if they have not already.

I know that it's all one account for all google services, but I expect that many users won't have or want to set up a google + profile.

Edit:

It seems so:



Branding Guidelines

Great API, but being used to drive up Google+ numbers. I wonder will that be seen as a hindrance by users, and how much of a profile might they need to set-up before being able to use a game developed using the API.

*Disclaimer: My knowledge of Google Play Game services is minimal so I am open to correction*

As you said it is essentially a way to drum up the number of users of Google+. In terms of what kind of a profile the user needs. It's very minimal afaik, i.e. I think you can just set up one and not bother adding friends, photos etc.

Of course how much of a profile they have may have an effect on how much benefit they get from the service. For instance if they just have a shell profile with no friends they wouldn't be able use features such as play with friends or compare scores with friends on a leaderboard. They would however be able to unlock achievements, save game data to the cloud and add scores to global leaderboards.

In terms of is it worthwhile to integrate play game services into your game? I would personally say yes. Wether it's right or wrong Google is really pushing people to use Google+, with Youtube, photo backups etc, so the chances are that if a user has an Android phone or tablet they will have a Google+ account. And the fact that many games now seem to have play game features built in means that users will get more used to signing in to Google+ via games and start to expect these features. If I ever do get around to making the game that I have in my head I do plan to integrate play game services from the beginning as I think it will give additional benefits in the long run

onemorechance

It's one account for all Google services, but I think that most users won't have a Google+ account per se; I know that I don't don't.

I just clicked the G+ app on my android phone and I got a "Get started" button, so I'd expect that many, and even most users, unless they specifically set it up, won't already have the G+ profile required to sign into a game made using the API.

A lot of the features are then going to require you to have friends on G+.

Anyway, I'd like to use it, but I don't like the idea of requiring users to create a G+ profile if they don't already have one.

The Corinthian

onemorechance wrote: »

Anyway, I'd like to use it, but I don't like the idea of requiring users to create a G+ profile if they don't already have one.

Then don't use it.

This gives a pretty concise list of what you get from Google Play Services:

http://developer.android.com/google/play-services/games.html

When you go through it all, it really just comes down to their writing the server-side code for app developers involved in things such as leader-boards, public achievements and the like.

But as with all free API's like this, you have to fit your game to what they're offering, their model, so it may not be ideal for your app. In many cases, it also doesn't really save you a lot of effort - seriously, how much coding does a leader-board require?

My view is that people have increasingly become suspicious of where their private data is going, since the whole Snowden affair. Where they would have clicked update without thinking, you're now getting people refusing to update their apps because the permissions are getting ridiculously intrusive.

In addition to this, forcing them to sign up to Google+ may be developer friendly (i.e. you don't need to code that extra functionality), but it's not user friendly (i.e. they have to go through the hassle of signing up to something before they can properly play). And that extra hassle translates to uninstalls.

There are other reasons I'd cite against using too many of Google's services in general; over-dependence on something that could be discontinued in a year, lack of control over future changes in their API or TOS or decreased value in your own codebase or collected user data should you ever choose to sell it.

So while there's plenty of Google services I think are worth employing (e.g. maps, in-app billing, etc), this one's not worth it IMHO.

onemorechance

The G+ sign-up / sign-in is enough of a reason for me not to use it, but you have raised further reasons for not using it, such as being at the behest of Google and any changes they make to it.

One of the more useful features of it is the "Exchanging game data between clients", but this can be achieved using Google Cloud Messaging.

...
GCM is completely free no matter how big your messaging needs are, and there are no quotas.
...

It should be suitable for many multilayer network games.

Thanks for the feedback folks!