Tag Archives: Google Play

Hear from app and game founders in #WeArePlay USA

Last week, we launched #WeArePlay, a new series featuring the people behind your favorite Google Play apps and games. To celebrate the Fourth of July holiday, we’re putting a special spotlight on app founders and developers across every U.S. state. #WeArePlay USA introduces you to the passionate professionals behind more than 150 growing businesses.

A gif of a collage of headshots that turns into the shape of a U.S. map. The gif ends with the text “#WeArePlay” and the URL g.co/play/weareplay-usa

Let’s take a quick road trip across the #WeArePlay USA collection, starting in the Big Apple. New Yorker Tanya was so inspired when her eight-year-old daughter asked to open an investment account that she created Goalsetter — an app that helps kids learn about finance through fun activities. She wants to help kids, and their parents, build stronger financial futures: “Part of my mission is to close the wealth gap in America by educating the next generation.” Read more stories from New York.

A graphic featuring a photo of Tanya with her kids, her name, her location of “New York, New York,” the name of her app “Goalsetter” and the #WeArePlay logo and URL.

Our next stop is Raleigh, North Carolina to meet Joe, John and Grant. They created JouleBug to help people better understand their environmental impact through interactive challenges — like competing with friends to save the most energy or reduce the most waste. “As we go through our days, it’s become easy to waste resources and not even notice it,” says Grant. “We want to draw attention to this and show how simple it is to change your habits.” Discover more stories from North Carolina.

A graphic featuring a photo of Joe, John and Grant on a mountain, their names, their location of “Raleigh, North Carolina” the name of their app “Joulebug” and the #WeArePlay logo and URL.

Making our way west, we meet Clarence and Edna in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They both share a passion for education and worked together to create Boddle — a 3D game that motivates kids to learn math. Using AI, Boddle also helps parents and teachers tailor learning content and track performance. Check out more stories from Oklahoma.

A graphic featuring a photo of Clarence and Edna, their names, their location of “Tulsa, Oklahoma” the name of their app “Boddle Learning” and the #WeArePlay logo and URL.

Our final stop brings us to Santa Monica, California with Jenova. While he was in film school, Jenova asked himself — could a game make you cry the same way a movie can? He launched thatgamecompany and started building games that tug at players’ heartstrings. His company now has close to 100 employees. Read more stories from California.

A graphic featuring a photo of Jenova, his name, his location of “Santa Monica, California” the name of his app “thatgamecompany” and the #WeArePlay logo and URL.

Explore the rest of the #WeArePlay USA collection, and stay tuned for more stories from around the world.

Notes from Google Play: making Play work for everyone


Hello,

As Apps Partnerships lead for Google Play, I have the amazing opportunity of meeting with many companies who share great ideas and feedback on how we can support you creating and growing successful businesses.

In this latest edition of Notes from Google Play, I want to share some of your work that has inspired us, alongside what is top of mind for me and our team. What sums it up for me is our focus on making Google Play work for everyone. It’s about making Play work better for all of you - the people behind apps and games - making it easier for you to grow apps and games business, and helping you better serve everyone, everywhere.


I will kick us off by sharing the story of OLIO, one of the many apps that has inspired me this year. OLIO is a community-driven app that is fighting to reduce food waste. The app provides a way for people to easily give away food to neighbors. Founders, Tessa Clarke and Saasha Celestial-One, had a goal to create local food sharing networks across the world and ensure nothing of value goes to waste. Having first launched the app in the UK, Tessa and Saasha’s belief in their core mission helped them expand the app to 62 countries and counting, partnering with global stores to help them reach zero waste along the way.

The success of the OLIO app is a tale of two women from different backgrounds, with the same dream, made for the benefit of everyone and our planet. For me, this is what it’s all about: ensuring that everyone is empowered to build a successful business that can benefit people around the globe.
 
 
So let me share more about some of my favorite tools and programs that we recently launched with this goal in mind.

Apps and games by everyone

Regardless of the size of your company, we want to make sure you have the insights and tools that enable you to make more informed decisions, and ultimately make it easy for you to build and improve your app or game business. Let’s take a look at privacy and security as an example, as this is a critical topic.

We have various tools and programs to help you build safe and secure experiences for everyone and protect your business, including the Play Integrity API, Data Safety section, Privacy Sandbox on Android, and also the newly launched Google Play SDK Index.The index provides data and insights about more than 100 of the most widely used commercial SDKs. This can help you navigate third-party SDKs and align with Google Play policies, so that you make more informed decisions for your business and your users.


We also have programs designed for companies with various needs, from media companies building experiences across devices, to startups solving local problems in the first cohort of Appscale Academy in India. These 100 promising app innovators have already inspired us with their drive and creativity to build high-quality apps that serve and help people across India, and the world.


We’re also excited to continue investing in programs designed to help grow businesses both big and small. These include the Google Play Partner Program which launched in March and is designed to help larger games businesses reach their growth and performance goals. We also just opened submissions for the Indie Games Accelerator and Indie Games Festival programs. We were particularly inspired by the alumni of the 2021 edition, and you can hear directly from Jimjum Studios in Israel, who create games that encourage kindness, community building, and generosity, in the first episode of Google Play Coffee breaks:


Beyond the size of the company, apps and games are built and run by people. So we are continuously investing in programs to drive diversity in the ecosystem and empower the next generations of app and game makers. Programs like Change the Game and our investment in organizations driving positive change in the games industry are just a couple of the programs I’m particularly proud of.


Apps and games for everyone

We believe everyone should have easy access to great app and game experiences. This enables people to lead better lives, and it helps you grow your businesses.

In order to help with this, we’ve made some updates that make it easier for everyone to access apps and games at a price that is right for them, which in turn helps you better monetise your apps or games. For example, you asked for more flexibility and less complexity in how you sell your subscriptions, so we launched new subscription capabilities. You can now create multiple base plans and offers for each subscription, all while significantly reducing the cost and complexity of managing an ever-increasing number of SKUs. Whether your aim is to better connect with people that are new to your business, or to retain your loyal users, you have the ability to create offers for everyone.

We’ve also invested in new tools that help people pay for your apps and games using the methods that suit them best, helping to improve your monetisation. Google Play Commerce provides buyer support in over 170 countries, and we’ve further increased access by adding to our payment method library, which now includes over 300 local payment methods in 70 countries. We also made changes to help you better adapt to local purchasing power by adding the option to lower prices, starting at the equivalent of 5 US cents in any market.


Serving people better doesn’t only mean adapting pricing, but also optimizing your apps and games for the devices they are using, so they can get the best experience. Whether it’s phones, wearables, tablets or TVs. We introduced new tools and resources to help you create better experiences on large screens and launched Google Play Games beta, to help you expand your game’s reach to PCs.


Celebrating you

I started by highlighting OLIO as a business that was brought into existence by newcomers to the apps space, and yet managed to have a positive impact across the world. This is only one of so many inspiring examples out there. We’ve just launched #WeArePlay, a new campaign that celebrates you, the global community of people behind apps and games, and your unique stories. It represents teams of all sizes — some founded by longtime coders and others by tech newcomers, some based in big cities and others in smaller towns. These are short stories that tell personal journeys of making apps or games that are solving a problem or bringing joy to people everywhere.



I look forward to watching you all continue to build amazing app and game experiences, grow your businesses, and enthrall your users. Here’s to you and your achievements - let’s continue to celebrate every step forward and each small win. That’s what makes us all grow.



Take care of yourselves and each other,

Sarah Karam

Director, Global Apps Partnerships, Google Play

#WeArePlay: Meet the people behind your apps and games

Every month, over 2.5 billion people visit Google Play to discover millions of apps and games. Behind each of these apps is an entrepreneur (or two… or three) with a unique story to tell. Some have been programming since childhood, others just learned how to code. Some live in busy cities, others in smaller towns. No matter how different their backgrounds are, these creators all have one thing in common — the passion to turn an idea into a growing business.

#WeArePlay celebrates and shares their stories. Over the next few months, you’ll hear from the people and businesses behind Google Play apps and games, and how they’re making an impact around the world.

Video featuring people behind four apps and games businesses on Google Play: Melissa, an entrepreneur for many years; Yvonne and Alyssa, who created a game with no prior experience; Anica and Kristijan, who run a family business; and Sam, who creates medical games.
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Our series kicks off spotlighting Yvonne and Alyssa, the London-based mother and daughter duo who created Frobelles — a dress-up game that helps increase representation of African and Caribbean hair styles in the game industry.

Video featuring the story of Yvonne and Alyssa from London, a mother and daughter duo who created the dress up game Frobelles. The video shows their life in London, their family, activities they do together and their personal journey creating the game.
10:25

You’ll also meet Hand Talk Translator’s Ronaldo, Carlos and Theadeu from Brazil, DailyArt’s Zuzanna from Poland, and TravelSpend’s world-trotting couple Ina and Jonas from Germany.

Gif swipes between photos of Ronaldo, Carlos and Thadeu, Zuzanna, and Ina and Jonas with their respective app names and the #WeArePlay logo.

A big thank you to all the apps and games businesses that are part of our Google Play community. Dive into some of their stories today and stay tuned for more.

#WeArePlay | Discover the people building apps & games businesses

Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Global Developer Marketing

Over 2.5 billion people come to Google Play every month to find apps and games created by millions of businesses from all over the world.

#WeArePlay celebrates you: the global community of people behind these businesses.

Each one of you creating an app or game has a different story to tell. Some of you have been coders since childhood, others are newbies who got into tech later in life. Some of you are based in busy cities, others in smaller towns. No matter who you are or how different your story is, you all have one thing in common - you have the passion to turn an idea into a business impacting people all over the world.

Now, and over the coming months, #WeArePlay celebrates you by sharing your stories.



We are kicking off the series with the story of Yvonne and Alyssa, the London-based mother and daughter duo who created Frobelles - a dress up game increasing representation of African and Caribbean hair styles.



You can now also discover the stories of friends Ronaldo, Carlos and Thadeu from Hand Talk Translator (Brazil - my home country!), art lover Zuzanna from DailyArt (Poland) and travel-loving couple Ina & Jonas from TravelSpend (Germany).





To all apps and games businesses - thank you for being a part of the Google Play community. Your dedication and ambition is helping millions of people learn, connect, relax, exercise, find jobs, give back, laugh, have fun, escape to fantasy lands, and so much more.

Read more and stay tuned for many more stories at g.co/play/weareplay


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#WeArePlay | Discover the people building apps & games businesses

Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Global Developer Marketing

Over 2.5 billion people come to Google Play every month to find apps and games created by millions of businesses from all over the world.

#WeArePlay celebrates you: the global community of people behind these businesses.

Each one of you creating an app or game has a different story to tell. Some of you have been coders since childhood, others are newbies who got into tech later in life. Some of you are based in busy cities, others in smaller towns. No matter who you are or how different your story is, you all have one thing in common - you have the passion to turn an idea into a business impacting people all over the world.

Now, and over the coming months, #WeArePlay celebrates you by sharing your stories.




We are kicking off the series with the story of Yvonne and Alyssa, the London-based mother and daughter duo who created Frobelles - a dress up game increasing representation of African and Caribbean hair styles.



You can now also discover the stories of friends Ronaldo, Carlos and Thadeu from Hand Talk Translator (Brazil - my home country!), art lover Zuzanna from DailyArt (Poland) and travel-loving couple Ina & Jonas from TravelSpend (Germany).

To all apps and games businesses - thank you for being a part of the Google Play community. Your dedication and ambition is helping millions of people learn, connect, relax, exercise, find jobs, give back, laugh, have fun, escape to fantasy lands, and so much more.

Read more and stay tuned for many more stories at g.co/play/weareplay


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Google Play @ Google I/O – 3 updates you need to know

Posted by Tom Grinsted - Group Product Manager, Google Play

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Here at Google Play, we’re always working on new ways to help developers grow their businesses, whether that’s by increasing installs, improving engagement, or boosting monetization. So in case you missed it, here are the top 3 new ways to grow your business that we announced at this year’s Google I/O:

#1: Improved custom store listings

Custom store listings have gotten a major update, giving you new ways to make a great first impression by showing the right message to each person.

You can now generate unique deep links to your custom listings, so you can show different listings to users depending on which channel or site they come from. And because Play Console provides analytics for each of your custom listings, you can see how effective each variation is and optimize them over time.

All developers can create up to 50 custom store listings, so you can create more tailored narratives for your users than ever before. With up to 5 experiments per listing, the opportunities for optimization are huge!

Custom store listings have gotten a major update, giving you new ways to improve your conversion rate.

Custom store listings have gotten a major update, giving you new ways to improve your conversion rate.


#2: LiveOps open beta

LiveOps are self-service merchandising units in the Play Store that promote limited-time events, offers, and major updates for your game or app. Developers in our beta can submit content to help inspire installs, increase engagement, and drive sales.

Plus, they can now use deep links to drop users directly into the most relevant part of their app or game, then measure success with the new LiveOps reporting dashboard in Play Console. These reports give a granular view of the performance metrics of each event, displaying the results over time and by outcome – whether that’s acquisitions, opens, or updates.

Learn more about LiveOps and express interest in our beta program here.

Developers in our LiveOps beta can submit content to be featured on the Google Play Store.

#3: New flexible tools to grow your subscriptions

As subscription business models evolve, many developers have asked us for more flexibility and less complexity in how they sell subscriptions. In a major update, we launched new subscription capabilities, allowing you to configure multiple base plans and offers for each subscription. Acquire new subscribers, incentivize upgrades, and retain existing subscribers, by creating multiple offers supporting different stages of the subscription lifecycle, all while significantly reducing the cost and complexity of managing an ever-increasing number of SKUs.

For each subscription, you can now configure multiple base plans and offers, without needing to manage an ever-increasing number of SKUs.

Plus, you can now offer prepaid plans that give users access for a fixed amount of time, and make a great option for regions where pay-as-you-go is standard or for users not ready to commit to an auto-renewing plan. Users can easily extend their access period at any time before plan expiration, with a top-up in your app, or right on the Play Store subscription screen.

That was just three launches from a whole bunch of great updates to help you grow and thrive with Play. Want to see more? Be sure to catch the full playlist on Google Play from Google I/O.

Progress on initiatives to keeping Google Play safe

Posted by Krish Vitaldevara Director, Product Management, Play and Android Trust & Safety

Google Play Privacy 

We want to keep you updated on the privacy and security initiatives we shared earlier this year, so you can plan ahead and use new tools to safely build your business. In the past few months, we launched:

  • Google Play SDK Index to help you evaluate an SDK’s reliability and safety and make informed decisions about whether an SDK is right for your business and your users. See insights and usage data on over 100 of the most widely used commercial SDKs on Google Play.
  • The Data safety section on Google Play, helping users better understand your apps’ data safety practices. Developers have told us that this new feature helps them explain privacy practices with their users and build trust. If you haven't yet, complete your Data safety form by July 20th.
  • Enhancements to app integrity tools like Play App Signing to securely sign millions of apps on Google Play and help ensure that app updates can be trusted. Use Play App Signing to help protect your app signing key from loss or compromise with Google's secure key management service.
  • Play Integrity API to help protect your app, your IP, and your users from piracy and malicious activity. Use this API to help detect fraudulent and risky interactions, such as traffic from modified or pirated app versions and rooted or compromised devices.
  • And a new Target API Level policy to strengthen user security by protecting users from installing apps that may not have the expected privacy and security features.

What’s coming up

  • As part of our work with the industry to build more private advertising solutions, we’ve launched initial developer previews for Privacy Sandbox on Android. We have more developer previews coming soon and a beta later this year.
  • We continue to help developers update their apps before policy enforcement actions are taken. We’ve extended time to make changes, improved clarity of responses, and added new training materials. Recent tests of advanced Play Console warnings have also shown solid results. As we refine these features, we’ll expand them to more developers this year.

Thank you for your partnership in making Google Play a safe and trustworthy platform for everyone.

Explore, communicate and customize with Android

Android is constantly adding features to better connect with the people and devices around you. Today, we’re introducing a set of updates to help your phone stand out as much as you do. From more expressive ways to message your friends, to subtle but smart upgrades to entertainment and accessibility, we ensure that every interaction with your Android device is more helpful than the last.

Add a personal touch to messaging with Gboard

Animated demonstration of a message turning into a decorative sticker at the touch of a button.

Caption: Add some flair to your messages with custom text stickers.

A picture is worth a thousand words — but Gboard can now turn your words into pictures, too. Previously available on Pixel phones, custom text stickers will soon be available to all Android Gboard users typing in English-U.S., allowing you to type what you want to say, select a design and share your message with your nearest and dearest.

Celebrate summer and Pride with new Emoji Kitchen stickers

Animation of a hand opening Messages, creating a watermelon soccer ball emoji and sending it to a contact.

Caption: Enjoy more celebratory emoji mashups to share with your friends.

New emoji mashups have arrived just in time for summer (for those of you in the Southern hemisphere, we got you covered too) with Emoji Kitchen. There are more than 1600 new combinations to help you express your excitement — like when you want to show how much you’re looking forward to your upcoming summer vacation ?️?️ or add a little hot summer twist to your usual go-to emoji (watermelon soccer ball, anyone?). We also have lots of rainbow-based stickers to help you embrace Pride Month in many unique ways. ?️‍?

Better conversations and connections with new accessibility features

Animated demonstration of how Sound Amplifier settings can boost audio and reduce background noise levels.

Caption: Amplify the sounds you want to hear, and filter out the sounds you don't.

Designed for and with people with hearing loss, Sound Amplifier uses your phone to amplify and filter important sounds around you. Today’s update brings improved background noise reduction, faster and more accurate sound and a revamped user interface that is easier to see.

Animated demonstration of Lookout generating a detailed description of an image sent via Gmail.

Caption: Hear a detailed description of images from just about any browser or app with Lookout Images mode.

Designed with and for people with low vision or blindness, Lookout uses your Android device’s camera to provide information about the world around you with a variety of modes. Now with the new Images mode, which uses Google’s latest machine learning model for image understanding, you can hear a description of an image by simply opening it from just about any app. In addition, enhancements to Text mode, Documents mode, Food Label mode and Explore mode are making Lookout more accurate. Lookout now also works offline without the need for Wi-Fi or data service. Download or updateLookout in Google Play to get the new features.

Use your Google Play Points for items in your apps and games at checkout

Video demonstration of using Play Points to get an in-app item without ever leaving the app.

Caption: Use your Play Points for in-app items at checkout without ever leaving the app.

Google Play Points is a rewards program that lets you earn points and rewards for the ways you already use Google Play. You can soon use your Play Points for in-app items at checkout, without leaving your favorite apps and games. Cover the entire item withPlay Points or split between Play Points and another form of payment. This is rolling out over the coming weeks in countries where Play Points is available.

These updates add to countless ways Android already helps you connect with others and the world around you. Visit android.com to learn more about these features and more.

Google Play helps indie games go further faster

Indie game developers are known for creating some of the most innovative titles to land on Google Play. It’s this creativity that captures the imagination of the more than 2.5 billion people using our platform each month.

At Google Play, it is our mission to help indie game developers reach their full potential, wherever they are in their journey.

This year, the Indie Games programs are back once again to help talented indie developers design, launch and grow high-quality games and reach new players. Find out more about how the 2022Indie Games Accelerator & Festival helps developers to go further faster.

Supercharge your growth with mentorship & live masterclasses

If you’re an indie developer who is early in your journey — either close to launching a new game or have recently launched a title — this high-impact program is designed for you.

With the help of our network of gaming experts, the Indie Game Accelerator provides education and mentorship for ambitious developers to help you build, launch and grow successfully.

Selected game studios will be invited to take part in the 10-week acceleration program starting inSeptember 2022 as the Accelerator Class of 2022.

This is a highly-tailored program for small game developers spanning 78 eligible countries, that includes a series of online masterclasses, talks and game development workshops. You’ll also get the chance to meet and connect with other developers from around the world who are looking to take their games to the next level.

Celebrating the top indie games in Europe, Japan & South Korea

If you're a passionate indie game developer and you have recently launched a high-quality game, enter your game to be showcased at the Indie Games Festival by Google Play.

Once again, we are hosting three international competitions in search of the most promising games from Japan, South Korea, and selected European countries, to celebrate the Top 20 indie games in each region.

The festival jury will consist of both gaming experts and Googlers, who are charged with finding creative indie games that are ready for the spotlight. As a finalist you will be able to join the Festival showcase and get your game discovered by top industry experts and players worldwide.

You can now enter your game to one of the Festival contests: Europe, Japan & South Korea.

For more updates and announcements about the Indie Games programs follow @GooglePlayBiz.

Grow your games with Google Play’s Indie Games Accelerator & Festival

Posted by Leticia Lago, P&E Developer Marketing

Google Play Indie Games Festival and Accelerator 

At Google Play, we are committed to helping developers of all sizes reach their full potential, and go further, faster. To continue supporting indies as they bring some of the most innovative titles to players worldwide, today we’re opening submissions to the 2022 edition of our two annual programs - the Indie Games Accelerator and Festival.

Through these programs, independent game developers and small studios can boost their game’s visibility, get training, and tap into a network of gaming experts:

  • If you are a small games studio looking for help to launch or grow a new title, enter the Accelerator to get exclusive training by mentors and industry experts;
  • Or, if you have already created and launched a high quality game that is ready for the spotlight, enter the Festival in Japan, South Korea or Europe for a chance to win promotions and reach new players.

Submissions for both Indie Games programs are open from June 1st to July 1st, 2022.



For more updates about Google Play’s programs, resources and tools for indie game developers, follow @GooglePlayBiz on Twitter & Google Play business community on LinkedIn.