A bunch of things have been popping up at the Game Developers Conference 2016. But Google announced some pretty cool things for Android Developers that is worth checking out. Ever wanted to try a game before using your data limit to download that game? Now you can. Ever downloaded a game to find out that it wasn’t worth downloading in the first place? Now you don’t have to.
Over the next couple of weeks, a new type of ad will be available that will allow users to try out a game without downloading it. The trial period is limited to 10 minutes, but if you enjoy the game, you will be able to download it immediately. But for now this feature would be for people connected to the Wi-Fi.
This is good for fans…but maybe even better for developers.
With this new model, Android developers have a better change of getting their games out there. They can prep the best 10 addicting minutes of gameplay they can in order to bring in more downloads (and not just any downloads, but downloads by users who already know they like playing the game). And if users don’t enjoy it, they can save space and devs won’t have to hear about it.
On the topic of Android game development, in an appeal to the indie crowd, there is a new section in the Google Play store for indie only games. This is meant to help smaller studios who publish Android games get some exposure. While the list at the moment is pretty small, the requirements to get on it include being a small game company (15 people and lower kind of thing), and the game has to be awesome in some way. You can find the games in the Indie Corner on the play store.
The new streaming functionality is a good thing too.
With some tweaking for some games, players will be able to stream their gameplay to YouTube directly. There are two reasons why this is going to be big. One, if you want to stream and monetize your gameplay, this is going to be a much easier way to put your foot in the door without the extra programs.
Reason number two, as a game developer, if you want to record your game to make a video, you usually need to root your device — which also voids your warranty. But using Google’s new Video Recording API, you can safely skip over that. So if you have made some games already, it will be worth going back to see if you can allow access. You can read more about that here.
