YouTube has reportedly started experimenting with a new online gaming service called Playables. This development arrives mere months after Google shut down Stadia, its high-profile moonshot project which unsuccessfully tried bringing cloud gaming into the mainstream.
The rise and fall of Google Stadia took barely three years combined, with the tech giant being fairly quick to abandon the service due to an overall lack of users. As part of the shutdown announcement in September 2022, the project's former chief, Phil Harrison, suggested that Google might implement the cloud streaming technology developed for Stadia in some of its other products and services moving forward.
It is unclear whether Playables is the first attempt at such a repurposing, although the platform does appear to have some overlap with Stadia's promise of highly accessible cloud gaming. YouTube recently started testing the service internally, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing an email sent to Google employees inviting them to join Playables. The solution reportedly allows users to instantly play and share a variety of games on desktops, smartphones, and tablets through the YouTube app. Both Android and iOS devices are said to be supported in the ongoing internal test.
The size of Playables' experimental game library is unclear, with the newly emerged report mentioning but a single title, Stack Bounce, which tasks players with destroying brick sheets with a bouncing ball. An Android exclusive of the same name is currently available on Google Play, with its store listing describing a similar premise. Assuming the two are one and the same, this particular detail suggests Playables could offer a way for Android developers to make their games available on iOS devices and desktops without committing to actual ports.
While Google Stadia offered exclusive games, there is currently no indication that Playables intends to do the same. The leaked email revealing the existence of the service contained no information about YouTube's plans for the platform. In a statement provided to WSJ, a company spokesperson labeled gaming as one of YouTube's long-term focus points that warrants constant experimentation, but declined to comment on Playables.
Given that state of affairs, it remains to be seen whether YouTube Playables ends up seeing the light of day. That notwithstanding, its very existence reaffirms that the Stadia shutdown did not spell the end of Google's ambitions in the online gaming space. This was already underlined by an early March report stating that Google is working with publishers on new cloud gaming projects.
Source: WSJ