Google has boosted its console cred with gamers and pushed itself as a platform for developers with an announcement of new gaming features at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
In a launch event on the fringes of GDC, Google introduced new gaming design themes for its iGoogle personalised home page and demonstrated how it could rival Facebook and other social networks as a casual gaming platform.
The games that can be attached as “gadgets” to a user’s home page on iGoogle have been as unsophisticated as Hangman to date, but Google and its partners showed off more complex and visually richer titles coming soon.
Sebastian de Halleux, chief operating officer of Playfish, said Google’s promotion of the OpenSocial standard had made it easy for his company to port its games to iGoogle. They already feature heavily on Facebook and the iPhone.
He showed off Who has the biggest brain? as an example, a quiz adapted as a Google gadget that allows users to play with friends across social networks.
In a handout to developers, Google said the ability for users to connect with one another is just around the corner and it invited them to build casual games in the iGoogle Developer Sandbox.
It pointed out the advantages of gaining access to tens of millions of users, enjoying viral growth with new OpenSocial features and creating monetisation opportunities in the iGoogle “canvas view” where the game expands to take up much of the page.
The new iGoogle themes launched on Wednesday evening range from Donkey Kong to Spore and World of Warcraft to Guitar Hero. They follow Google’s introduction of artist, fashion and music themes for iGoogle.
