Google has announced the latest version of the company’s Google Play Games Services mobile development platform at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
The newest edition of the mobile developer tool kit includes a multiplayer plug-in for the popular Unity game engine that enables Android users to play the same title with gamers on iOS devices.
“We want the whole world to play together,” said Google developer advocate Todd Kerpelman. “All of us on the team are gamers. By that I don’t mean that we just play games; it’s more that we understand that games are powerful.”
Other Google Play Games Services updates include a C++ version of the tool kit’s SDK, as well as several new categories on Google Play to aid in game discovery and in-app advertisements for the purchase of virtual items.
As reported earlier, Google Play Android app revenues led in Korea and Japan last year, according to a report from app analytics firm Distimo. Korea and Japan are also two of the three fastest growing mobile game markets worldwide.
In China, the third rapidly expanding market in the group, Android games also led by a wide margin, though sales were chiefly via domestic app stores not tracked by Distimo.
The report also revealed that the top 200 Android apps grossed US$12 million per day worldwide in 2013, up from US$3.5 million in the previous year, with freemium apps accounting for 98 per cent of all revenues, up from 89 per cent in 2012.
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