Here’s Everything You Need To Know About Google Play Game Services

During today’s Google I/O keynote, the company announced Google Play game services – a series of APIs that help developers add more features and value to their Android and iOS games.

Much like Apple’s Game Center or Xbox Live, Google Play game services adds a number of features to Android or iOS games that users expect, and developers have been wanting to implement. What’s unique about Google Play game services is that it’s not exclusive to Android, as it can be integrated into iOS games via a native SDK for iPhone and iPad.

So, what does Google Play game services offer to developers and users? Here’s the full list:

Achievements that increase engagement and promote different styles of play.

Social and public leaderboards that seamlessly use Google+ circles to track high scores across friends and across the world.

Cloud saves that provide a simple and streamlined storage API to store game saves and settings. Now players never have to replay Level 1 again.

Real-time multiplayer for easy addition of cooperative or competitive game play on Android devices. Using Google+ Circles, a game can have up to 4 simultaneous friends or auto-matched players in a game session together with support for additional players coming soon.

Google has also enlisted the help of developers to make sure that some of the most popular games on the Android platform are already using Google Play game services. Some of those games include World of Goo, Super Stickman Golf 2, Beach Buggy Blitz, Kingdom Rush, Eternity Warriors 2 and Osmos.

For more information on all things Google and gaming, check out Google’s game developer portal.