- Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2020 canceled due to coronavirus pandemic.
- Google launches Gamers Summit March 2020 to launch new game developing tools.
Coronavirus pandemic has affected everything and every individual in the world, and recently, the annual GDC, which was supposed to take place in March, has now canceled and will probably take place somewhere around August 2021 now.
In an attempt to showcase and project game developers' efforts to a wider audience, Google has launched a Game Developers Summit digitally. To achieve this purpose, Google has announced the launch of several modified game developing tools.
Android is the world's most popular mobile platform, and Google Play being one of the most important platforms for game developers especially, this decision to upgrade and upscale their apps by the introduction and launch of new Android tools for mobile game development is surely going to have a positive impact. According to a blog post published by Greg Hartrell, Head of Product Management, Games on Android & Google Play, there are more than 2.5 billion Android monthly active devices across the globe, and 1.4 trillion minutes are played per month in games on Google Play. The payment system of Google Play helps the monetization through their game apps in approximately 65 countries. To make the process smooth, Google allows over 275 local forms of payment, which include 180 carrier billing options like gift cards, which are sold in over 900 thousand unique retail locations globally!
With Android and Play Store, Google's main aim is the deliverance of its platform that can let developers build, discover and experience games to perfection. It believes in helping the developers highlight their games by giving them proper access to a wider player base.
So, with these great intentions, this Summit March 2020 has made announcements like the launch of a new, totally revamped Android Studio System Trace profiler with native memory profiling capabilities, a new extension for Visual Studio that allows developers to easily add Android support for their cross-platform games, and a new Android GPU Inspector, which is designed to give detailed information about a game's render stages and GPU counters to the developers.
Google's various Application Programming Interfaces, like Google Play Billing, Android App Bundles and Play Instant have been restructured too. They will now be a part of the new Game Package Registry.
And then there is Crytek's CRYENGINE which will give support to Android from this summer onwards.
With new native crash symbolication and Performance Tuner features, Google Play Asset Delivery aims to provide free and smooth delivery of the game assets to the users with precision and without any hindrance. The players can get into games faster while these assets are being downloaded. This helps the developers to save a few bucks by cutting the cost of hosting and delivery of game resources.
The Play Billing Library 2 for the developers of Unity allows them access to all of Play Billing Library 2's features. This lets users pay with cash and make in-app purchases outside of the game possible.
With all these modifications, Google promises to evolve the Play store and make it more game-centric by adding a system of relevant tags. This will allow users to learn specific traits about different games. Having said that, Google ensures the continuation of high-quality gaming experiences with Google Play in the future also.
Read next: Google Play Store Is Working On a Mini-Game, Similar To Dinosaur Game on Chrome
