
Google releases Games for Google+ - skorgu
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/games-in-google-fun-that-fits-your.html
======
Khao
I love how Google has really taken time to address the problem number 1 with
Facebook games : they are spam machines! Games in Google+ will feel more like
real games (pc, mobile or console games) as in if I feel like playing a game
and I see my friend also plays that game, then we can share scores and stuff.
But when I'm not feeling for games, then games don't invade my news feed. What
would be the point anyway in knowing my friend had a high score in a game I
wouldn't play? It's only spam.

Clicking on that "Game" tab on Google+ will be just like opening Steam and
seeing all your friends' activity and going "Cool, which game do I play now?
Is there anyone online right now?" and I love that!

~~~
brown
> What would be the point anyway in knowing my friend had a high score in a
> game I wouldn't play? It's only spam.

Most of us hate this kind of stuff. I know I do. It's super annoying.
Furthermore, as a game developer, it would kill me a little bit to "sell out"
like that.

However, this is why Zynga is worth a bazillion dollars. They understand the
power of "virals". Have you ever talked to a Zynga employee? "Virals virals
virals". They are one of the few companies who really understand the power of
converting social pressure into profit.

~~~
mkr-hn
I would happily share meaningful (in game context) things, and I think those
would convert better anyway.

~~~
blake8086
Do you think you're an average person?

~~~
adriand
Do you think the average person would respond "yes" to that question?

~~~
justinhj
On average, perhaps yes

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dwc
"When you’re ready to play, the Games page is waiting—click the games button
at the top of your stream."

I keep looking, and it keeps not being there.

~~~
thethimble
<https://plus.google.com/games/>

~~~
moeffju
If you don't see the button, that will only throw up a page telling you to
wait until it's rolled out to you.

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crxpandion
Now if they only integrate it into hangout. Virtual LAN Parties. Not to be
confused with VLAN parties...

------
foenix
As a games developer still green-around-the-ears I'm really looking forward to
trying my hand at making a social media game. I never wanted to make a
facebook game because I felt like that ship had sailed.

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AshleysBrain
So are these games all HTML5? Or a combination of technologies? I can't find
any info about that. Looks very cool though!

~~~
jerhinesmith
Definitely a combination of html, flash, etc. These aren't games developed
_by_ Google -- rather games running on Google's platform (similar to Facebook
games).

~~~
AshleysBrain
Cool. Would be nice to hear that they're definitely supporting HTML5 though!

~~~
AshleysBrain
Why all the downvotes? Isn't the technology they're supporting important? :P
There's not even any mention on their developer blog here:
[http://googleplusplatform.blogspot.com/2011/08/stepping-
onto...](http://googleplusplatform.blogspot.com/2011/08/stepping-onto-google-
platform.html)

~~~
Cushman
I think it's because "supporting HTML5" is something with nebulous meaning,
and not allowing people to make canvas games in this day and age would be
shooting themselves in the foot big time, so it's quite unlikely that they
won't. I don't think that deserves downvotes, though. People just surly.

~~~
AshleysBrain
I see. Still, I don't think "HTML5 games" is as vague as "HTML5" - it pretty
much means either canvas or SVG. And it would be nice to hear an explicit line
from Google on it - not sure why they haven't actually stated the supported
technologies yet. I suppose they're still working on it.

~~~
Cushman
Yeah, I thought your question was totally reasonable— just take the downvotes
as "They probably will."

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andypants
I can't wait until they open up the g+ api.

~~~
TillE
I can't wait until they open up Google+. As far as I can tell, they're still
in danger of a Wave repeat, where the hype burns out too early. There are tons
of people still out there with their noses pressed up against the glass,
unable to join in the fun.

Games are a big deal, though. They'll keep people on G+ even when there's
nothing immediately social to do, and increase interactions between people,
this time in a non-spammy way.

~~~
starwed
Really? It's been ages since I saw anyone on facebook asking for an invite.
(Of which I currently have 150...)

It was super hard to get in for the first couple of weeks, and then it
suddenly became a non-problem.

~~~
ncarroll
Hi starwed, I'd love an invite to google+ if you'd be willing. I'm not an FB
user, but the google folks have me all curious. My email is in my profile, and
thanks a million!

~~~
BvS
Just follow this invitation link:
[https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?path=%2F%3F...](https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?path=%2F%3Fgpinv%3DJ9Rucv9NE-k%3A-fBARG8aYwg)

~~~
ncarroll
Thanks!

------
sgt
I've got like 10 people in my Friends circle on Google+ and my feed is
literally flooded. I suppose I could do some filtering (although I doubt that
is what a typical user would even attempt doing). It just seems like it's
harder to find out "what's going on" than with Facebook.

~~~
felipemnoa
Could you elaborate a bit more. Maybe we can gain some insights from your
experience. i.e. Why is it harder to find out what is going on in Google+ as
opposed to Facebook?

~~~
losvedir
I'm not OP but I'm finding it hard to follow what's going on as well.

The primary reason is that my "following" circle is completely overwhelming my
friends, family, etc, circles. I'd love to be able to look at all my circles
except Following (or rather, to be able to view some subset of my circles at a
time). Clicking to view "Family", scrolling down and reading, then back to the
top and clicking "Friends", and then "Acquaintances" is tedious.

In addition, an option to view more condensed posts would be helpful for
viewing my Following deluge. As it is, each post gets a few paragraphs and a
handful of comments. This is often nice, but sometimes I'd like to scan it
more quickly, and if it could be just the person who posted it and the first
few sentences, I'd love it.

~~~
chime
If you use Chrome, get
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pidkbnhjgdngcfcaik...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pidkbnhjgdngcfcaikoocdanfijkgdli)

Then uncheck the Following circle. Let me know if you have any problems with
it. I'm in the process of making it work with multiple-accounts so if you have
multiple accounts, it might not work.

~~~
Shorel
Ohh thank you so much

------
mkr-hn
The only thing that kept me from gaming on FB was stream pollution. I might
actually play a few games on G+. I could even see myself developing one.

------
DanielRibeiro
It would be nice to announce an open API as well. Hope it comes soon.

~~~
mindcrime
Yes, and - for one - __really __hope the eventual API builds on stuff they've
already pushed in the past, and doesn't go in a whole new direction. I very
much want to see OpenSocial, OAuth, GData / AtomPub, and existing open
standards used for whatever they cook up. And given how much Google have put
into these various standards in the past, it's what I _expect_... I just can't
shake this sneaky fear that they're going to hit us with a big swerve and roll
out a lot of new, incompatible stuff.

~~~
tomjen3
I hope they don't. OAuth is a nightmare (I just tried to make a simple client
for IOS, right now I want to beat up the guy who made that standard) and the
rest is far more complicated than a simple json based rest api.

~~~
mindcrime
Well, if you don't use OAuth, then what? You'd have to have something roughly
equivalent to deal with authorizing API requests, no?

As for GData / AtomPub and REST... AtomPub was designed specifically to be a
restful protocol, and GData is heavily based on AtomPub... but also has a JSON
mode, so you get your wish there.

Anyway, the point I was getting at isn't about any one (or two or three)
specific items of how they implement their API... just a hope that they stick
(mostly) to established / open standards. By the same token, I hope Google are
- or become - involved in the Federated Social Web initiative and adopt the
work that comes out of that. But that's just me...

~~~
tomjen3
I would use password based authentication. The pattern is well established,
users know how to deal with it and it is simple from an implementation point
of view.

If you don't want to do that, then let me just pass as a parameter a nonce and
then, if the user clicks agree or whatever, allow me to use that as the
password.

Just skip the consumer secrets, token, two or three step authentication and
HMAC based authentication. It is a social media system, not a stock-trading
application.

------
e1ven
Found this video showing some of the implementation details (Via Tom Anderson
on G+)

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTYzyIcp0mY>

All in all, it looks well done. I want to be absolutely sure I don't see
Puzzle crap if I'm not interested, but their statements so far are in the
right direction.

------
int3rnaut
I'm still in the dark here so I can't check, but will Games for Google+ be
using the same business models as most facebook games?

~~~
yuvipanda
I take it you mean Ads? I'm not sure 'Facebook Credits' got much traction

~~~
andypants
FB credits must have gotten some traction, because facebook games are only
allowed to use facebook credits as premium currency...

------
jhuckestein
Next up, apps for Google+ and (more interestingly) for hangout.

------
Raphael
Marissa Mayer is kicking our asses at Bejeweled with 409,950 points.

------
latch
i wish they bought me out and integrated mogade.com into it as a part of the
platform for game developers :(

If you think games are important to your platform, I really think that having
game-specific APIs and features for game developers to target is both useful
and simple.

I've always thought a Facebook meets xbox live would do well.

------
ristretto
Has anyone seen the games? What are they? An iframe, ajax, javascript or sth
else?

------
jcapote
Good night, sweet prince.

------
alecco
This is problematic given the current vulnerability to spam Google+ has.
Anybody can friend you, via your own friends.To make it worse, Google will
give you a red notice for this on every service, even search. I've been
friended by multiple online media sociopaths through my friends.

Say Mr. X social media adds a few of your publicly listed friends. And some
add him back. Then Mr. X adds all their friends by looking at their circles
(both ways). This includes unlisted people. They add all of them. Again, some
of them add them back without double-checking. This is reinforced when Google+
shows contacts in common. You think, hey this is a friend of a friend. Often
they have more than 2 contacts in common.

It's either spreading like fire or my friends are particularly vulnerable to
this, wich I doubt as most are tech-savvy.

I hope Google takes care of this issue before the Zyngas creep up and make the
service as trashy as Facebook.

Edit: reworking examples to make it a bit more clear.

~~~
munificent
> Anybody can friend you and it will be shown across all Google pages, even
> search. I've been friended by multiple online media sociopaths through my
> friends.

I don't see how that leads to spam. Friendship isn't symmetric in G+. Media
sociopaths can follow me all they want. If I don't follow them back, I don't
see a word they write in _my_ stream.

~~~
alecco
Mr. X adds me. Looks like a normal guy and G+ shows we have 2 contacts in
common. So I add him. Then I get his spammy stream. The only way to verify is
to go check their page before adding, but that's a hassle. So most people just
add them. And while they keep the spam rate low and make it look OK most
people just leave them. This happens in particular with users who visit G+
less frequently.

This happened to me several times in the last few weeks.

EDIT: I am aware of this so I don't add them anymore, but many of my contacts,
perhaps most, keel falling for it. And I cant escape the constant notices of
MR Xs adding me on G+ even when I'm not in G+. I can't tell G+ not to notice
me of spammers adding me and just do it for actual friends. BTW, downvotes?
Wow...

~~~
humbledrone
> So I add him.

There's your problem. Why on Earth are you adding people that you don't know
at all? I'd like to see you back up your "So most people just add them"
statement with hard evidence. I for one, do not "just add" people just because
they circled me. I first check to see if they are someone I care about at all.

~~~
isnotchicago
This isn't quite "hard evidence", but as an...experiment...a few weeks ago, I
added every single person Google recommended, a total of 1118. Of those, 65
complete strangers have added me back, which is 5.8%. This percentage is not
"most", "many", or even "some". It is irksome to see the red notification for
no good reason, but I do not think people really feel compelled to add random
people to their circles.

~~~
yariang
Out of curiosity, how long did it take to add 1118 people by hand?

~~~
isnotchicago
Not long at all, actually. The first time I added people, Google was
recommending around 600 users. So I just selected all, the dropped them into a
new circle. Same process to get the rest of the remainders over the next few
days.

Now, Google shows maybe 100 or so recommended users, which is below my
threshold of "fun number of people to add at one time". I say "maybe 100"
because, interestingly, Google+ no longer shows the number of recommended
users. I wonder if they removed this feature because of visual clutter, or
were finding a lot of people abusing the feature like I did.

