Google Launches Games Developer Summit March 2020

Google has launched its newly virtual Google for Games Developer Summit March 2020 online today.

“Across Android and Google Play, our mission is to deliver the best platform to build, discover, and experience games,” Google’s Greg Hartrell writes in the announcement post. “Specifically, we’re working on ways to help you increase the reach of your games and manage the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem. We’re also focused on helping you access a wider player base, once you’ve made a great game and are ready to get it out there.”

The Google for Games Developer Summit March 2020 is available on the web here. Among the announcements today are:

Big numbers. Android remains the world’s most popular mobile platform with more than 2.5 billion monthly active devices (the same number as last May, and in need of an update). Google says it is seeing over 1.4 trillion minutes played per month in games on Google Play. Its payment system helps games monetize in over 65 countries. And Google offers users over 275 local forms of payment, including more than 180 carrier billing options, with gift cards sold in over 900 thousand unique retail locations worldwide.

New Android tools for mobile game development. Android Studio 4.1 is available now in Canary with an overhauled System Trace profiler and native memory profiling capabilities. Even more impressively, Google has released an Android Game Development Extension for Visual Studio in Developer Preview that so developers can easily add Android support for their cross-platform games. And Crytek has announced CRYENGINE support for Android.

New ways to reach more devices and users. Google Play Asset Delivery provides free, dynamic delivery of the right game assets to the right devices at the right time, Google says. There are new native crash symbolication and Performance Tuner features. And the Play Billing Library 2 for Unity developers lets developers access all of Play Billing Library 2’s features, such as allowing users to pay with cash and surfacing IAPs outside of the game.

New ways to reach more devices and win go-to-market. Google says that the Play store is evolving to be more gameplay centric by showing more gameplay visuals a new system of tags to help users learn more about specific game traits. Google also says it will continue to emphasize high-quality gaming experiences across Google Play and will soon launch day 1 auto-installation for all pre-registration games.

You can find out more in the original post and by watching the online Games Developer Summit March 2020 sessions.