Google announces “game gifts” for Google Play Games at GDC 2014
Game Developers’ Conference 2014 is kicking off today, and Google seems to have been the first one to make an announcement at the annual event. It all has to do with Google Play Games, natch.
Firstly, Google is announcing the ability to gift in-game items to friends and family in your Google+ circles. They’re calling this “game gifts,” and it sounds flat-out awesome. They’ll also be enabling the ability for players to send multiplayer invites to friends directly, as well as introducing 18 new game categories in the Google Play Store to make it easier for folks to find what they’re looking for.
Next up, Google announced forthcoming support for iOS. While that may not seem noteworthy for those of you without an iOS device, it actually is. Google will be updating their Unity tools to allow easy cross-platform multiplayer, so you could eventually be playing your favorite games with your iPhone and iPad-owning buddies as if you had one yourself.
Other news was more for developers, with Google announcing improved statistics and ad analytics. Google says most of these new tools will be available starting tomorrow, though users probably shouldn’t expect their favorite games to implement anything and everything right away. Whether it takes a week or a few months, we’re definitely excited to see all of this stuff implemented in the latest games moving forward.
[via Google]