Google Play Games getting online events and new profiles

Google Play Games got its moment in the spotlight in the Google I/O keynote today, where Google's Ellie Powers rolled through some new features for the gamers among us that should add a nice little boost to the experience.

The new Games Profile will change automatically based upon in-game achievements and will give gamers a unique identity. Also new is Quests, a new set of APIs for game developers to run online time-based events inside the games without requiring an update to be pushed out. This will be available to developers and gamers in the next update to Google Play Services and Google Play Games.

Additionally, Powers filled us in that $5 billion has been paid out on top of Google Play to game developers, an increase of 2.5x on before last years Google I/O. And that's pretty good news for those folks.

Richard Devine