Games without frontiers?
Google has formally announced the launch of a gaming facility for its new social networking initiative Google+. It was announced by Google's social supremo Vic Gundotra via the usual blog, and comes a few weeks after Google apparently let the cat out of the bag.
Gundotra offered the standard ‘we believe in sharing' corporate line, but soon moved onto one of the key features Google is hoping differentiates its social networking service from Facebook - the ability to choose who you share with.
"We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life," he blogged. "That means giving you control over when you see games, how you play them and with whom you share your experiences. Games in Google+ are there when you want them and gone when you don't."
It looks like Google has done a good job in getting the right games publishers on-board, with its initial offering including the ubiquitous Angry Birds and games from the social gaming market leader Zynga. This seems like a US-only launch initially, as we're not seeing the games tab in our Google+ page yet.
There's a growing trend for Facebook and Google to try to steal each other's thunder with social product announcements, and this was no exception.
The Facebook blog added a new post entitled ‘Making games better' in the early hours of this morning listing some enhancements to its own gaming service, including a stream of your friends' activities, a larger playing area, and the ability to bookmark your favourite games. Isn't competition a wonderful thing?
