YouTube has started to dip its toes further into the world of gaming by offering a small selection of games on its platform.
From Tuesday November 28, subscribers to YouTube Premium will be able to access 37 mini-games, which will live entirely inside YouTube’s own ecosystem and will be available on desktop and mobile.
But the opportunity might not be around forever. According to YouTube, the games are only set to be available until March 28, 2024, at least initially.
The selection of games, which Google dubs Playables includes many variants on arcade classics such as Angry Birds Showdown, Brain Out, Daily Solitaire, The Daily Crossword and 8 Ball Billiards Classic.
At the time of writing, Google - YouTube’s owner - has given no indication of whether the feature will ever trickle down to free users of the platform.
Despite Google’s immense success in other areas of the tech world, Google has yet to become a resounding force in the already crowded world of gaming platforms.
Cloud gaming platform Stadia, which Google touted as “Netflix for games” when it launched in November 2019, shuttered last January.
The service allowed gamers to play performance-intensive AAA games, including Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, without the need to first purchase hardware such as an Xbox, PlayStation or a gaming PC, instead streaming all the content from Google’s own servers.
Google, which refunded any purchases made on the platform, attributed the closure of the service to it failing to gain “the traction with users” that it expected.
Despite the crowded marketplace for mobile games, we’re seeing other video streaming platforms try their hand at becoming gaming platforms, even if they are only initial baby steps.
In August, Netflix started offering game streaming for a select number of subscribers in the UK and Canada, allowing gamers to play a small selection of arcade games via the Netflix app on their TV, laptop or mobile.
Netflix could be planning much grander things in the world of gaming though nothing has ben officially announced. Last year, Mobilegamer.biz spotted numerous job listings at Netflix to work on “a brand-new AAA PC game”, with the company looking to hire both art and technical staff for the project based in Los Angeles.
The addition of new features comes as many YouTube Premium subscribers might be having a harder time justifying the cost of their subscriptions. In the UK it rose from £11.99 to £12.99 a month last August.
