Following Stadia’s death at the start of this year, Google looks to be planning another gaming initiative inside YouTube with “Playables.”
According to the Wall Street Journal on Friday, “YouTube is internally testing a product for playing online games.”
“Playables” is the name of this gaming feature with titles accessible from the YouTube app/website on “mobile devices or desktop computers.”
The report says there are several, but only details one: “Stack Bounce, an arcade game in which players attempt to smash layers of bricks with a bouncing ball.” It’s currently being tested internally with employees.
A quick search reveals that it is an existing GameSnacks title, which originated as an Area 120 project to create games for low-power devices that have slow connections. You can already find them in Android Auto and directly on the web.
However, it’s not clear if these light HTML5 titles are the extent of what YouTube is doing with Playables. The WSJ frames this as the company wanting to find “new areas of growth following a slowdown in advertising spending.” When asked for comment, Google said:
“Gaming has long been a focus at YouTube,” a company spokesman said in a statement. “We’re always experimenting with new features, but have nothing to announce right now.”
Just offering titles from GameSnacks does not result in an obvious fit with the rest of the video site and other recent expansions, like YouTube Podcasts. Additionally, there’s no real community aspect behind these short games.
Stadia’s YouTube integration let you jump into games right from a video or even joining a livestream. Of course, the previous Google attempt at gaming died before that saw wide adoption.
Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for the rest of Google’s Play Games plan following the launch of the PC client. An extensive roadmap leaked due to the Apple and Epic Games lawsuit in 2021.
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