Google Just announced With some significant upgrades to the Google Play gaming experience on Windows PC, improvements covering game discovery and purchasing, and news that a huge number of paid titles are now being made available for the desktop.
While the official Windows client for Google Play apps and games has been available for several years, these latest updates mean the experience is better than ever.
There are four major changes for gamers looking to play Android games on Windows.
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First, Google is “actively expanding” the number of paid, premium games that are fully optimized for PC. Android games don’t get this optimization by default, and need to be tweaked specifically to support PC gaming (keyboard controls and all), so more titles meeting this criteria would be very welcome.
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Second, the Play Store Games tab on mobile devices has a new PC section, so you can actually see which titles will be cross-platform compatible before you install.
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Third, you only need to buy the game once to use it on both mobile and desktop (something that wasn’t always the case in the past).
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The last upgrade is Game Trials. On select titles, you’ll be able to dive in and start playing for free—once you reach a certain limit in terms of time or progress, you’ll be asked if you want to purchase the game (and your progress will carry over if you decide to purchase).
Credit: Lifehacker
It’s not clear from the announcements how long it will take for all of this to roll out, but Google says that games such as Moonlight Peaks, a sledding gameAnd Repairs on a low budget Will be available on PC “in the coming months”. None of those games are yet live in the Play Store app on Android.
There’s a lot to love about running Android games on the desktop—not least the big screen, and keyboard and mouse input options—so if you’re eager to dive in, here’s how you can try it out.
How to Play Android Games on Your PC
Start by visiting Google Play Games web portal on your Windows PC. Follow the download prompts, and you’ll go through the process of installing the software and entering your Google account details (for syncing purposes). Assuming you’ve actually played the game on your Android device at some point, your profile and stats are carried over to the desktop.
At the end of the installation process, you will be shown a list of games you have already played that are available on Windows. You can also click to find this list later from your library On the home page of the Google Play Games app. Most of the titles I’ve played on Android feel present and true.
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The playing experience, overall, is intuitive and straightforward. I had no problems with most of the games I tried, although sometimes desktop controls can get in the way: click the keyboard icon on the left side of the game window to remap this (you may also find some control settings in games).
What do you think so far?
You can also click the Visual Settings button (sliders icon) to change how the game is displayed on the screen, and there’s also a volume control button on the left. Games stick to their default orientation from mobile, be it landscape or portrait, but you can adjust the size of the gaming window.
The games I tried from my own library were hit and miss when it came to syncing—some took my progress from my phone and some didn’t, so it seems like the onus is largely on the developers to implement this now (and it’s something Google clearly wants to improve).
#DRIVE on PC.
Credit: Lifehacker
From the home page, click the magnifying glass icon to explore games from desktop: you can filter out titles that aren’t optimized for PC, and from what I can see, there’s already plenty to choose from. I couldn’t find any game trials available at the time of writing, so it looks like it’s still in the pipeline.
Android games on PC can be a lot of fun—especially those that work properly with a keyboard or gamepad—and I can see a lot of gamers getting set up, especially given the latest updates. And when you’re not sitting at your Windows PC, you can continue gaming as usual on your phone or tablet.
