YouTube may allow you to play games through the service in the future

Google is reportedly testing a new feature

Marco Wutz | Jun 26, 2023

YouTube may allow you to play games through the service in the future /

Citing an internal email it has obtained, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google is planning to test a new product called Playables on YouTube. It’s supposed to enable users to play games on mobile devices and PC through the video platform.

This does sound pretty similar to Google Stadia, the corporation’s dead cloud gaming service, though it’s not clear if Playables uses the same tech that powered Stadia. In any case, with the focus seemingly being on mobile games, this project might be more comparable to what Netflix Games is doing, which is offering subscribers to its streaming service access to a library of titles they can download and play on their mobile devices.

Both the scope and business model of Playables are still uncertain at this point – we don’t know if this would be a standalone service offered by the platform or rolled into an existing subscription theme. Naturally, we’ll have to wait and see how Google’s tests of the technology are going first. After all, Playables may not even make it out of this stage and never actually see the light of day.

Google announced in September 2022 that it would shut down Stadia after the service didn’t prove to be as popular as the company had hoped after its initial launch in 2019 – showing the company’s notorious willingness to put entire departments and technologies into the bin if they don’t deliver results quickly.

For now, check out every game available on Netflix for your mobile game subscription needs.

Published Jun 26, 2023

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg