Google Play Games gets game gifts, improved iOS support, in-app invites and more

Google has made some big changes to the Play Games cross-platform game service and given users and developers some new features that are geared towards improving the native Android gaming experience.   With these new changes, announced at the Game Developers Conference this week, Google is making a significant step up towards gaming on Android and also gives developers more tools to better monetise their offerings. Google claims that four times as much money was paid out to developers in 2013 as compared to 2012 from Google Play.   In terms of user-facing changes, Google has enabled Game Gifts, which allows you to send virtual in-game gifts to anyone in your Google+ circles or through searching for a particular player. Similarly, others can send you objects to help you clear hurdles within a game. You can also send multiplayer match invites from within the app now, letting you notify your circles of any new games you may have stumbled upon.   Google has expanded multiplayer to support iOS, so now turn-based and real-time multiplayer options are available on both Android and iOS, significantly reducing the amount of time taken for match-making. “To further help with cross platform game development, we’re updating our Play Games Unity Plug-in to support cross-platform multiplayer services, and introducing an early Play Games C++ SDK to support achievements and leaderboards,” Greg Hartrell from the Google Play Games team, said in a blog post.   Google is giving developers the power of Google Analytics to understand which types of ads work best within their games, get realtime data on how any changes are affecting the user experience, and how users interact with the various screens like the in-app purchases banner ads and other key revenue channels.   Along with this Google is allowing developers to pick one out of 18 new game categories: Action, Adventure, Arcade, Music, Role Playing, Simulation, Strategy, Puzzle, Educational, Card, Casino, Casual, Board, Family,  Trivia, Word, Racing and Sports. This would theoretically make it easier for users to discover new games, and gives developers more exposure too.