Bits Blog: Games Arrive on Google+

Google introduced games to its social network on Thursday. Such games have played a key role in Facebook’s success. 

One of the main ways that Facebook addicts users is games, and now Google+ is following Facebook into gaming.

Google began introducing games on its social network Thursday, and while it is starting with just a few options, they include big-name games like Angry Birds from Rovio, Bejeweled Blitz from PopCap Games and most notably, Zynga Poker.

Zynga has built the vast majority of its business on Facebook, and that business is thriving — Zynga has filed to go public and says it earned $90 million in profit on sales of $597 million last year. But analysts have also criticized it for relying too much on one platform.

That is about to change. Google+ has been growing remarkably quickly, and already rivals existing social networks. Though it does not have Zynga’s most well-known games, FarmVille and Mafia Wars, the two companies already have a partnership because Google has invested in Zynga.

Google+ users will see a Games page at the top of their newsfeeds and can click on it to play games or see gaming updates from friends. But updates will be shared only with select circles of people when users are on the Games page, so they will not appear in general newsfeeds — something that has annoyed Facebook users in the past.

“If you’re not interested in games, it’s easy to ignore them,” Vic Gundotra, a senior vice president of engineering at Google who developed its social network, wrote in a blog post. “Your stream will remain focused on conversations with the people you care about.”

Meanwhile, Facebook said Thursday that it was holding an event for gaming developers Thursday night, and that reporters were invited to demo new gaming products and speak with developers Friday.

Google also sent a message to software developers, who have been clamoring to build apps for Google+. It said it was partnering with only a few game developers now, but would open the doors to other developers as soon as it works out some kinks. Google will invite developers slowly, it said, emphasizing the quality of apps over quantity.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=f75ce396e710ecec3d611fe5df9f93a9