Tag Archives: Game Developers Conference

Google for Games Developer Summit March 2020

Posted by Greg Hartrell, Head of Product Management, Games on Android & Google Play

"Developer Summit Google for Games " with game illustration.

While we're sorry we didn't get to see you all in person at GDC, we hope you are all staying healthy and safe. As many of us look to press on with work as much as possible, we’d like to share with you what our teams have been working on at the digital Google for Games Developer Summit. We couldn’t be happier with the continued growth of the vibrant Android gaming ecosystem. In fact, Android remains the world's most popular mobile platform with more than 2.5 billion monthly active devices and great news for game developers, we’re seeing more than 1.4 trillion minutes played per month in your games on Google Play. It’s important to us that our platforms are highly useful to every kind of game developer, so our payment system helps games monetize in more than 65 countries. Moreover, we offer our users more than 275 local forms of payment, including more than 180 carrier billing options, with gift cards sold in over 900 thousand unique retail locations worldwide.

Across Android and Google Play, our mission is to deliver the best platform to build, discover, and experience games. 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. Last year, we shared that we’re investing heavily in our games efforts to address your challenges in these areas, and now we are excited to share several new tools and services built specifically with game developers in mind.

Catch up on everything shared at g.co/gamedevsummit.

New Android tools for mobile game development

A major area of investment for us has been making it easier for developers to build and optimize games for Android. Here’s a round-up of several new tools we’re releasing:

  • Android Studio Profilers: We’ve overhauled our Android Studio System Trace profiler to allow you to inspect and visualize in fine detail how your code is being executed. We also added native memory profiling capabilities so you can see how your game is allocating memory and find memory leaks. Download Android Studio 4.1 Canary and watch the session.
  • Android Game Development Extension for Visual Studio: We’re introducing a new tool to make it easy to add Android support for your cross-platform games. This integrates easily with existing Visual Studio-based workflows so now you can conveniently generate APKs, deploy to Android devices or an emulator, and debug your Android game from within Visual Studio. Apply for the developer preview and watch the session.
  • Android GPU Inspector: Our new Android GPU Inspector enables you to look deeply into an Android GPU and see detailed information about your game’s render stages and GPU counters. Now graphics engineers are empowered with information and insights to optimize their game for better frame rates and more battery life. Apply for the developer preview and watch the session.
  • Game Package Registry for Unity by Google: Our new package registry consolidates various Google APIs, starting with Google Play Billing, Android App Bundles, Play Asset Delivery, Play Instant, and Firebase for Games, all in one place. Learn more and watch the session.
  • Crytek announces Android support: CRYENGINE is known as a high performance game engine for PCs and game consoles and will be adding a full Android pipeline to their engine this summer. Learn more.

New ways to reach more devices & users

We’ve been working to help developers scale their reach to a growing player-base across the Android ecosystem. Today, we’re introducing a few new tools to help your development process and provide greater insights into your game’s performance.

  • Google Play Asset Delivery: Introducing a new set of delivery features for games services, building on our App Bundle infrastructure to give you free, dynamic delivery of the right game assets to the right devices at the right time. All of this allows players to get into your game faster while assets are being downloaded, while you cut the costs of hosting and delivering d game resources. Learn more and watch the session.
  • Android vitals native crash symbolication: Now you can debug your native crashes more easily with support for native symbols in Play Console. Simply upload your native debug symbols to get the benefits in Android Vitals. Apply for the open beta and watch the session.
  • Android vitals performance insights with Android Performance Tuner: We’re making it possible to optimize your frame rate and fidelity across many devices at scale with new performance insights in Android vitals. For those in our developer preview, you can unlock this by integrating the new Android Performance Tuner into your game: a new library in the Android Game SDK. Apply for the developer preview and watch the session.
  • Play Billing Library 2 for Unity developers: Game developers using Unity can now access all of Play Billing Library 2's features, such as allowing users to pay with cash and surfacing IAPs outside of the game. This is the best way for Unity developers to prepare for Play’s Billing Library version requirements in 2021. Learn more.

New ways to reach more devices and win go-to-market

The Google Play store is shifting to be more gameplay centric by showing more visuals that demonstrate gameplay and a new system of tags to help users learn more about specific game traits and aid in exploration. Learn how you can ensure your game is of high-quality and leverage various features and new services to help you succeed in your go-to-market activities.

  • Emphasis on quality: We continue to emphasize high quality gaming experiences across Google Play, to encourage immersive gameplay with strong technical performance and being free of crashes. Learn more.
  • Pre-registration: Hundreds-of-millions of players use pre-registration campaigns on Google Play each year, making it an effective way to expand the reach on launch. We’ll soon be rolling out day 1 auto-installation for all pre-registration games, to help you build early consumer awareness and capture pre-launch demand.
  • Play Pass: Late last year we launched Play Pass in the US market as a subscription service providing users with access to hundreds of great apps and games on Google Play, completely free of ads and in-app purchases. Learn more and express interest.

Thanks for your support in continuing to build incredible games. Make sure to try some of the new tools and services we just released and catch the full playlist of mobile developer sessions. If you’re interested in sharing feedback to help shape the development of cutting edge features, apply to join our developer preview programs from Android and Google Play. You can also learn about all of the offerings we have to help game developers building on Android at d.android.com/games.

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Join us for the digital Google for Games Developer Summit

Posted by the Google for Games Team GDC banner

Last month, Game Developers Conference (GDC) organizers made the difficult decision to postpone the conference. We understand this decision, as we have to prioritize the health and safety of our community. GDC is one of our most anticipated times of the year to connect with the gaming industry. Though we won’t be bringing the news in-person this year, we’re hosting the Google for Games Developer Summit, a free, digital-only experience where developers can watch the announcements and session content that was planned for GDC.

Google for Games Developer Summit

The Developer Summit kicks off on March 23rd at 9:00AM PT with our broadcasted keynote. Immediately following, we’ll be releasing a full lineup of developer sessions with over 10 hours of content to help take your games to the next level.

Here are some types of sessions to expect:

  • Success stories from industry leaders on how they’ve conquered game testing, built backend infrastructure, and launched great games across all platforms.
  • New announcements like Android development and profiling tools that can help deploy large APKs to devices faster, fine tune graphic performance, and analyze device memory more effectively.
  • Updates on products like Game Servers (currently in alpha)—a fully managed offering of Agones, letting developers easily deploy and manage containerized game servers around the globe.

Sign up to stay informed at g.co/gamedevsummit.

Support for the game developer community

We recognize every developer is impacted differently by this situation. We’re coordinating with the GDC Relief Fund to sponsor and assist developers who’ve invested in this moment to further grow their games.

We also understand many developers were looking forward to sharing their content with peers. To help with this, developers can use YouTube to stream events from small to large using tools like Live Streaming and Premieres.

We can’t wait to share what we have in store for gaming. Discover the solutions our teams have been building to support the success of this community for years to come.

This article was cross-posted from the Google Developer Blog. Google Play will be participating in the Google for Games Developer Summit on March 23rd at 9:00AM PT to share how we're making Google Play even more powerful for game developers!

Join us for the digital Google for Games Developer Summit

Posted by the Google for Games TeamGDC banner

Last month, Game Developers Conference (GDC) organizers made the difficult decision to postpone the conference. We understand this decision, as we have to prioritize the health and safety of our community. GDC is one of our most anticipated times of the year to connect with the gaming industry. Though we won’t be bringing the news in-person this year, we’re hosting the Google for Games Developer Summit, a free, digital-only experience where developers can watch the announcements and session content that was planned for GDC.

Google for Games Developer Summit

The Developer Summit kicks off on March 23rd at 9:00AM PT with our broadcasted keynote. Immediately following, we’ll be releasing a full lineup of developer sessions with over 10 hours of content to help take your games to the next level.

Here are some types of sessions to expect:

  • Success stories from industry leaders on how they’ve conquered game testing, built backend infrastructure, and launched great games across all platforms.
  • New announcements like Android development and profiling tools that can help deploy large APKs to devices faster, fine tune graphic performance, and analyze device memory more effectively.
  • Updates on products like Game Servers (currently in alpha)—a fully managed offering of Agones, letting developers easily deploy and manage containerized game servers around the globe.

Sign up to stay informed at g.co/gamedevsummit.

Support for the game developer community

We recognize every developer is impacted differently by this situation. We’re coordinating with the GDC Relief Fund to sponsor and assist developers who’ve invested in this moment to further grow their games.

We also understand many developers were looking forward to sharing their content with peers. To help with this, developers can use YouTube to stream events from small to large using tools like Live Streaming and Premieres.

We can’t wait to share what we have in store for gaming. Discover the solutions our teams have been building to support the success of this community for years to come.

Update on Google at GDC 2020

Posted by the Google for Games Team

Last Friday, GDC 2020 organizers made the difficult decision to postpone the conference. We understand this decision, as we have to prioritize the health and safety of our community.

Every year, we look forward to the Game Developers Conference and surrounding events because it gives our teams a chance to connect with game developers, partners, and friends in the industry.

Although we won’t be connecting in-person this year, we’re still excited to share the latest announcements from Google with everyone through our digital experience. We'll be sharing plans for our digital experience in the coming days.

Thank you to all who keep this community thriving and check back soon at g.co/gdc2020 for more details.

Update on Google at GDC 2020

Posted by the Google for Games Team

Last Friday, GDC 2020 organizers made the difficult decision to postpone the conference. We understand this decision, as we have to prioritize the health and safety of our community.

Every year, we look forward to the Game Developers Conference and surrounding events because it gives our teams a chance to connect with game developers, partners, and friends in the industry.

Although we won’t be connecting in-person this year, we’re still excited to share the latest announcements from Google with everyone through our digital experience. We'll be sharing plans for our digital experience in the coming days.

Thank you to all who keep this community thriving and check back soon at g.co/gdc2020 for more details.

Get ready for the Game Developers Conference

Posted by Kacey Fahey, Games Developer Marketing, Google

Cross-posting from the Google Developers Blog.

Google For Games at GDC March 16-20, 2020

Join us online or live* at the Google Developer Summits during the Game Developers Conference on March 16 and 17 to learn about the latest tools and updates to build great games, reach more players, and improve discovery of your game.

Google has lots to share with the game development community at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March. Check out our plans and sign up to keep up to date with the latest GDC news and announcements from Android, Google Play, Firebase, and more.

For one week, tens of thousands of creators from the gaming community come together at GDC to hear the latest industry innovations and network with peers to enable better gaming experiences for players around the world.

Below is a preview of what to expect from Google, and remember, it’s just the beginning. Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter as we reveal more leading up to the event, or you can check out our website, Google for Games at GDC.

Google for Games Keynote

We will start the week with the Google for Games Keynote on Monday, March 16 at 9:30 am PST. Join the livestream and learn about the latest tools and solutions to help game developers create great games, connect with players, and scale their businesses.

GDC 2019 Keynote picture

Google Developer Keynote photo at GDC 2019

Google Developer Summit

We have two days of in-depth sessions where you can uplevel your skills across Google products and solutions. Topics range from new tools to optimize game development, how to reach more devices and players, using new Firebase features to alleviate infrastructure management challenges, and much more.

Learn more about the Google Developer Summit we’ll be hosting on March 16 -17 and how you can join in person with an official GDC ticket or via livestream.

We’ll be sharing more details about everything we have planned at GDC in the coming weeks so be sure to sign up to be among the first to hear the latest updates, and save the date to watch the keynote and other Developer Summit sessions at g.co/gdc2020.

More to come soon!

The Google for Games team

*On-site events are part of the official Game Developers Conference and require a pass to attend.

Get ready for the Game Developers Conference

Posted by Kacey Fahey, Games Developer Marketing

We’re excited to see you at the upcoming Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. Join us March 16th-20th, 2020 to learn about new products and solutions from Google that will help developers for all platforms take their game to the next level. If you can’t make it in person, sign up to keep up to date with our announcements and view the livestream.

Everything kicks off with the Google for Games Developer Summit Keynote on Monday, March 16th where product leaders from across Google will share the newest announcements for game developers. After the keynote, join in on two days of developer sessions and learn how to use Google solutions to create great games, connect with more players, and scale your business. Check out the agenda today.

Starting Wednesday, March 18th, visit our booth in the GDC Expo to experience demos and meet one-on-one with Google product experts.

If you can’t attend GDC in-person, watch the Keynote and other Developer Summit sessions via the live stream at g.co/gdc2020.

We’ll be sharing more details about what we have planned at GDC in the coming weeks — be sure to sign up to be among the first to hear the latest updates. On-site events are part of the official Game Developers Conference and require a pass to attend.

See you there!

See the full agenda

Google Mobile Developer Day at Game Developers Conference 2019

Posted by Kacey Fahey, Developer Marketing, Google Play & Android

We're excited to host the Google Mobile Developer Day at Game Developers Conference 2019. We are taking this opportunity to share best practices and our plans to help your games businesses, which are fuelling incredible growth in the global mobile games market. According to Newzoo, mobile games revenue is projected to account for nearly 60% of global games revenue by 2021. The drivers of this growth come in many forms, including more developers building great games, new game styles blurring the lines of traditional genres, and the explosion of gaming in emerging markets - most notably in India.

Image Source: GamesIndustry.biz

To support your growth, Google is focused on improving the game development experience on Android. We are investing in tools to give you better insights into what is happening on devices, as well as in people and teams to address your feedback about the development process, graphics, multiplayer experiences, and more.

We have some great updates and new tools to improve game discovery and monetization on Google Play, which we also shared today during our Mobile Developer Day:

Pre-registration now in general availability

Starting today, we are launching pre-registration for general availability. Set up a pre-registration campaign in the Google Play Console and start marketing your games to build awareness before launch. Users who pre-register receive a notification at launch, which helps increase day one installs.

Google Play Instant gaining adoption

We have seen strong adoption of Google Play Instant with 3x growth in the number of instant games and 5x growth in the number of instant sessions over the last six months. Instant experiences allow players to tap the 'Try Now' button on your store listing page and go straight to a demo experience in a matter of seconds, without installing. Now, they're even easier to build with Cocos and Unity plug-ins and an expanded implementation partner program. Discover the latest updates on Google Play Instant.

Android App Bundles momentum and new large download size threshold

Over 60K apps and games on Google Play are now using the Android App Bundle publishing format, which is supported in Android Studio, Unity, and Cocos Creator. The app bundle uses Google Play's Dynamic Delivery to deliver a smaller, optimized APK containing only the resources needed for a specific device.

To better support high quality game experiences and reflect improved devices, we've also increased the size limit for APKs generated from app bundles to 150MB and raised the threshold for large download user warnings on the Google Play Store to 150MB, from 100MB.

Improved tools in the Google Play Console

Store listing experiments let you A/B test changes to your store listing on actual Play Store visitors. We recently rolled out improvements, introducing two new metrics - first time installers and D1 retained users - to more accurately reflect the performance of your store listings. These two new metrics are now reported with hourly intervals and are available via email notifications, letting you see results faster and track performance better.

Country targeted store listings allow you to tailor your app's store listing to appeal to users in different countries. You can customize the app title, icon, descriptions and graphic assets, allowing you to better appeal to users in specific target markets. For example, you can now tailor your store listing with different versions of the English language for users in India versus the United States.

Rewarded ads give players the choice to watch an advertisement in exchange for in-app items. With rewarded ads in Google Play, you can now create and manage rewarded ads through the Google Play Console. No additional SDK integrations are required.

We hope you try some of these new tools and keep sharing ideas so we can make Android and Google Play a better place to grow your business. We are committed to continue improving the platform and building tools that better serve the gaming community.

Get started today by visiting two new resources, a hub for developers interested in creating games on Android and games.withgoogle.com, for developers looking to connect and scale their business across Google. Many of these updates and resources come from community suggestions, so sign up for our monthly newsletter to stay informed.

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AdMob is “leveling up” your business with new app monetization innovations

Yesterday, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), we announced important updates to AdMob that could help you unlock new business with rewarded video formats and free, unlimited and real-time analytics reporting. These features will help you monetize your games more effectively by helping you keep your players engaged with more immersive ads and by giving you a faster understanding of how they are interacting with your game.


Over the last year, developers embraced AdMob’s platform to mediate rewarded video ads to nine leading rewarded networks, including TapJoy which we announced yesterday. And we’re not stopping there. AdMob developers around the world now have access to Google’s own video advertising demand from Google AdWords, significantly increasing the breadth and scale of rewarded demand available. That means AdMob now offers a single platform solution including mediation, demand, and reservations. And for those publishers currently using either IronSource or Mopub, adaptors are now available to add Google demand.

Our native ads have also seen tremendous growth over the last year as a way for developers to deliver rich, immersive ad experiences. For developers building their games in Unity, a popular gaming engine, we will shortly be releasing a plugin that supports native ads and native ad mediation on both iOS and Android. This will expand AdMob’s platform and network support for Unity developers beyond banner, interstitial, and rewarded ads available today.

We are also investing in better measurement tools for developers by bringing the power of Firebase Analytics to more game developers with a generally available C++ SDK and an SDK for Unity.

C++ and Unity developers can access Firebase Analytics stream view for real-time player insights
Here’s what developers have to say about rewarded ads in AdMob:
"Implementing AdMob rewarded ads helped us not just monetize non-spending users but increase overall revenue of the game, including IAP revenue. Also, AdMob mediation made it easy to compare our ad performance across ad networks." - Somin Oh, Ad Monetization Manager @ JoyCity
If you haven’t tried AdMob rewarded ads yet, here’s how you can get started. We’re hosting a series of Hangouts on Air around rewarded demand and mediation. During these session we will share best practices to implement and optimize the format and highlight key areas that AdMob rewarded can help you be successful in, including:

  • Access the scale of Google’s video demand: With AdWords’ global presence and advertiser base, AdMob publishers will benefit from geographically diverse demand.
  • Diversified demand with rewarded mediation: Help ensure that there’s always an ad available to show, and that the ad shown is the most valuable to you.
  • User-friendly ad formats: Clear guidance to users at all touch points, including opt-out option for full user control over ad experience.
  • Great User Experiences: AdMob provides highly engaged ads such as landscape and portrait video formats in rewarded ads where there is no incentivization of the download giving a clear value exchange for the user.
  • Popular Game Engine Support: New integrations with Cocos2d-x and Unity game engines allow you to seamlessly support rewarded ads in your games. 

It’s been a privilege to meet so many of you at GDC and learn about the amazing games that you’re all building. We are committed to continuing on this journey with you to build a smart monetization platform for you to grow long-term gaming businesses.

Make sure to stay connected on all things AdMob, follow our Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.

The AdMob Team

Source: Inside AdMob


“Level up” your gaming business with new innovations for apps

Originally shared on the Inside AdMob Blog
Posted by Sissie Hsiao, Product Director, Mobile Advertising, Google. Last played Fire Emblem Heroes for Android

Mobile games mean more than just fun. They mean business. Big business. According to App Annie, game developers should capture almost half of the $189B global market for in-app purchases and advertising by 20201.

Later today, at the Games Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, I look forward to sharing a series of new innovations across ad formats, monetization tools and measurement insights for apps.

  • New playable and video ad formats to get more people into your game
  • Integrations to help you create better monetization experiences 
  • Measurement tools that provide insights about how players are interacting with your game
Let more users try your game with a playable ad format

There’s no better way for a new user to experience your game than to actually play it. So today, we introduced playables, an interactive ad format in Universal App Campaigns that allows users to play a lightweight version of your game, right when they see it in any of the 1M+ apps in the Google Display Network.

studio.justad.mobi-Management-studio-test_ad.php-browser&saved&id=703423(Nexus 5X)_nexus5x-portrait.png
Jam City’s playable ad for Cookie Jam

Playables help you get more qualified installs from users who tried your game in the ad and made the choice to download it for more play time. By attracting already-engaged users into your app, playables help you drive the long-term outcomes you care about — rounds played, levels beat, trophies won, purchases made and more.

"Jam City wants to put our games in the hands of more potential players as quickly as possible. Playables get new users into the game right from the ad, which we've found drives more engagement and long-term customer value." Josh Yguado, President & COO Jam City, maker of Panda Pop and Cookie Jam.

Playables will be available for developers through Universal App Campaigns in the coming months, and will be compatible with HTML5 creatives built through Google Web Designer or third-party agencies.

Improve the video experience with ads designed for mobile viewing

Most mobile video ad views on the Google Display Network are watched on devices held vertically2. This can create a poor experience when users encounter video ad creatives built for horizontal viewing.

Developers using Universal App Campaigns will soon be able to use an auto-flip feature that automatically orients your video ads to match the way users are holding their phones. If you upload a horizontal video creative in AdWords, we will automatically create a second, vertical version for you.

Cookie Jam horizontal video and vertical-optimized video created through auto-flip technology

The auto-flip feature uses Google's machine learning technology to identify the most important objects in every frame of your horizontal video creative. It then produces an optimized, vertical version of your video ad that highlights those important components of your original asset. Early tests show that click-through rates are about 20% higher on these dynamically-generated vertical videos than on horizontal video ads watched vertically3.

Unlock new business with rewarded video formats, and free, unlimited reporting

Developers have embraced AdMob's platform to mediate rewarded video ads as a way to let users watch ads in exchange for an in-app reward. Today, we are delighted to announce that we are bringing Google’s video app install advertising demand from AdWords to AdMob, significantly increasing rewarded demand available to developers. Advertisers that use Universal App Campaigns can seamlessly reach this engaged, game-playing audience using your existing video creatives.

We are also investing in better measurement tools for developers by bringing the power of Firebase Analytics to more game developers with a generally available C++ SDK and an SDK for Unity, a leading gaming engine.

002-v1-entryPoint_v2.png
C++ and Unity developers can now access Firebase Analytics for real-time player insights

With Firebase Analytics, C++ and Unity developers can now capture billions of daily events — like level completes and play time — to get more nuanced player insights and gain a deeper understanding of metrics like daily active users, average revenue per user and player lifetime value.

This is an exciting time to be a game developer. It’s been a privilege to meet so many of you at GDC 2017 and learn about the amazing games that you’re all building. We hope the innovations we announced today help you grow long-term gaming businesses and we look forward to continuing on this journey with you.

Until next year, GDC!

1 - App Monetization Report, November 2016, App Annie
2 - More than 80% of video ad views in mobile apps on the Google Display Network are from devices held vertically video, Google Internal Data
3 - Google Internal Data