Google today announced three new features in Google Play Games Services: key player stats, alerts, and double the Cloud Save storage. In other words, the company is making it easier for developers to understand what players are doing in their game, manage their game features, and store more data in the Google cloud.
If you’re a Google games developer, you can now see key player stats directly in the Developer Console. These include the number of players signed into your game through Google, the percentage of players who unlocked an achievement, and how many scores are posted to your leaderboards.
Next up, you can now see Game Services alerts in the Developer Console, which should help you identify issues and optimizations in your app. These can include anything from incorrect IDs for achievements or leaderboards, forgetting to hit the publish button, or having your game throttled because you accidentally called a method in a tight loop.
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Last but not least, Google is increasing the Cloud Save storage limits. On October 14, you’ll be able to store twice the amount of data through Cloud Save: up to 256KB per slot, for a total of 1MB per user (up from 512KB of data per user, per game when it was introduced).
“Mobile games are on fire right now; in fact, three out of every four Android users are playing games,” Google boasts. “Building on Google Play Services, you can quickly add new social features to your games, for richer game experiences that drive user acquisition and engagement across platforms.”
Individually, these are minor additions, but together they should make it easier for mobile game developers to leverage Google Play Games Services. We’ll know soon enough if the strategy works.
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