Google Play’s PC Invasion – The Quiet Strategy to Dethrone Steam

There’s a good chance that someone will post about Google’s shortcomings if you open a gaming forum on any given Tuesday. The remarks are foreseeable. Stadia is mentioned. Someone brings up Google Reader, Google Plus, Google Inbox, and a long, somewhat depressing list of products that came and went with great fanfare. The internet has a certain amount of skepticism about Google’s non-search, non-advertising endeavors, and it’s not totally unfounded. The PC gaming community’s response to Google Play Games, which debuted in 2022 with the idea of enabling users to play Android mobile games on a desktop with a mouse and keyboard, ranged from mild curiosity to outright mockery. games for mobile devices. on a computer. The pitch was that.

After three years, the pitch has evolved in a subtle, gradual manner without making a big announcement that could draw unwarranted attention. Google is now adding native PC games to Play Games on PC in addition to Android ports. It has implemented Game Trials, a one-hour trial period prior to purchase that is similar to a feature that Steam users have long valued. It is launching Sidekick, an AI-driven in-game helper that can respond to player inquiries and provide hints. Under the slogan “Buy Once, Play Anywhere,” it has started enabling cross-platform purchases, added a dedicated PC tab to the Play Store online storefront, and increased hardware support to operate on a larger variety of Windows computers than the platform originally supported. By itself, none of these movements are dramatic. Together, they begin to sketch what appears to be a cohesive strategy, which is noteworthy in and of itself given Google’s gaming history.

There are substantial numbers associated with the larger Google Play ecosystem. About two billion players use Google Play each month, according to Aurash Mahbod, the Google vice president in charge of games on the platform. Two billion. The fact that he was hesitant to say how many of those are playing on PCs speaks volumes about where the growth is truly occurring. Nevertheless, there is no distribution issue with two billion monthly users. Getting people who play Candy Crush on their phones to consider Google as a serious desktop gaming destination, either in addition to or instead of Steam, Epic, or Microsoft’s storefront, is a conversion issue. Compared to a new feature rollout, that is far more difficult to engineer.

For background, if you haven’t recently looked at the numbers, it’s easy to underestimate Steam’s true dominance. The platform has more than 50,000 titles, about 130 million monthly active users, and about 20 years of community investment in the form of libraries, reviews, friend networks, and achievement histories that users are very reluctant to give up. Valve doesn’t do much marketing. It is not required to. Similar to how Gmail became infrastructure, Steam has become so because so many people have built their digital habits around it that switching is never quite worth the expense. This is not because Steam is flawless.

It’s important to recognize that Google’s strategy this time around is very different from the Stadia debacle. Stadia asked users to trust Google’s servers and Google’s dedication to the product as a replacement in an attempt to replace something, such as local hardware or the games that people already owned. It turned out that this trust was neither misplaced skepticism nor forthcoming. Less than four years after launch, in January 2023, Google shut down Stadia. The Play Games PC strategy’s short-term goals are more modest. It’s not attempting to take Steam’s place. It is attempting to expand an already-existing ecosystem—Android gaming—to a new screen while progressively enhancing the value proposition with native PC content. It’s probably wiser to take a slower, less glamorous approach.

It is worthwhile to consider the developer economics. For developers who bring their games to the platform, Google offers up to 15% of earnings back. This is a significantly better deal than Steam’s typical 30% cut, and Epic Games has been using it as a competitive wedge for years with modest but significant success. There is less barrier to entry for independent developers than for AAA studios, especially for those who already maintain Android versions of their games. Instead of the next Call of Duty, that’s where Google’s realistic near-term catalog growth lies: games like Dredge, a highly regarded independent game with PC and mobile versions.

Observing all of this, it’s difficult to avoid experiencing some ambivalence. There are still a lot of gaps in Google’s PC gaming selection. AAA exclusives don’t exist. There is no subscription service that can match the exceptional value proposition of Xbox Game Pass. There aren’t any free monthly games to entice customers the way Epic’s store has, turning millions of casual visitors into account holders. Mahbod remained silent when asked directly if Google intended to follow suit with a subscription or free game program. That quiet might indicate the arrival of the feature. It might indicate that it isn’t. It’s really hard to tell with Google.

It appears that there is commercial justification for a persistent second attempt because the PC gaming market is big enough and Steam’s dominance is sufficiently established. With its gaming division, Amazon made an unsuccessful attempt. Epic is still far behind and continues to spend a lot of money. Despite owning the games thanks to its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has been sluggish to establish storefront dominance. There is room for a challenger. It’s still unclear whether Google Play’s patient, cross-platform strategy will ultimately succeed, but considering the company’s past, a healthy dose of skepticism seems like the sensible default.