YouTube, the largest video website, has also officially begun to enter the gaming field. The platform currently offers its premium members a collection of online games that can be played directly on the mobile app or desktop app. The feature, called "Playables," was first experimentally rolled out to some users in September. According to Droid-Life, YouTube sent a notification to Premium tier subscribers last week informing them of the Playables feature and allowing them to try it out. Users who opt in will be able to play a total of 37 mini-games without downloading or installing.
These games are generally casual games for the general public, including "Angry Birds: Showdown", "Brain Master", "Daily Solitaire", "Daily Crossword", etc., as well as some arcade games. These games will not be available forever after that. The notice states that these games will be playable before March 28, 2024. Currently, premium members can find these games under "Playables" in the "Explore" tab.
The company isn't the only non-gaming tech company trying to get into gaming, but not all are successful. Google, the parent company of YouTube, just shut down its cloud gaming service Stadia in January; and a few weeks ago, Amazon announced that it would lay off 130 positions in its free games department and announced that it would "refocus" its work. ByteDance has previously said that it will "vigorously promote" the gaming business, but it has now announced that it will lay off about 1,000 employees in the gaming department.
On the other hand, Facebook Meta, a social media company, has been experimenting with real-time games for seven years and just launched a new distribution model this month, allowing developers to publish game test versions directly on the social media; Netflix, a streaming media platform, has released many mobile games for subscribers on mobile devices. Although this feature has received mixed reviews, the company still hopes to continue to expand into the field of cloud gaming.