YouTube Expands “Playables” Gaming Experiment to More Premium Users

Google has started expanding access to YouTube Playables, a selection of 37 mini-games that can be played within the YouTube app on desktop and mobile. The company started testing this new “Playables” service earlier this year, and Droid Life is reporting that some YouTube Premium members are receiving a notification with an invite to test these games.

I’m a YouTube Premium member and I haven’t received that notification yet, so maybe the YouTube team is still testing the waters with this new Playables service. According to the report, the notification says that the games will only be available until March 28, 2024.

After turning on the feature, YouTube Premium members can access the games within a new Playables section in the app’s Explore tab. There, mobile games like Angry Birds Shodown, Stack Bounce, Daily Solitaire, and more can be played right from the app without requiring users to install anything.

The YouTube team often tests experimental features with select YouTube users, though not all of them eventually see the light of day. However, YouTube is already a popular destination for gaming videos, and maybe YouTube Premium users may find some value in a free selection of casual games.

In recent years, Netflix is another video platform that made a push into gaming by offering a selection of games to subscribers on iOS and Android. And after Google killed its Stadia cloud gaming service in January, Netflix now has multiple studios working on exclusive games, and the company also launched in August a new cloud gaming service on TVs in beta.