Google announces new feature for Android game developers

The new feature, which is called “play as you download”, will work with games that use Play Asset Delivery System.

Hyderabad: Google announced a new feature for Android game developers at its Game Developer Summit on Monday. The new feature will speed up downloads by almost 2x – the time from starting a download in the Google Play store to the game launching on Android 12 devices.

The new feature, which is called “play as you download”, will work with games that use Play Asset Delivery System. As the name suggests, even before all the game’s assets have been downloaded, players will be able to get going.

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Users might skip installation if the game takes too much time to download

Vitor Baccetti, the Senior Product Manager at Google Play, while addressing game developers over delivery of video games on Google Play, says, “Users have limited attention spans and want to play right away. Since there is a plethora of games available on Google Play Store, a user might skip installation if the game takes too much time to download.”

Baccetti also added that ‘long waits’ are the primary reason for lower engagement with an application, resulting in cancellation of download requests by the user. At the same time, creating a high-quality experience for users incorporates multiple digital assets which increases the file size of a game. Hence, Google has come up with a new feature.

On an average, modern games are likely the largest apps you’ll ever download, and that download takes a couple of minutes. With this new feature, Google promises that it’ll take only half the time to jump into a game that weighs in at 400MB or so.

Is the feature similar to Google’s ‘Play Instant’?

However, this is not the company’s first attempt at making games load faster. Google’s “Play Instant”, which is also powered by Android App Bundle format like the feature “play as you download”, already offers a related feature that allows gamers to immediately start a game from the Play Store.

The idea of “Play Instant” was to completely do away with the install process and give potential players an opportunity to try out a new game right away.

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