Google+ will soon challenge Facebook further with a new Games section, evidence of which has appeared on a Google help page and putting the new social network in even more direct competition with Facebook, the current leader in online gaming platforms. The launch of a Google social gaming network would introduce competition to a market that Facebook currently monopolises and Google+ help articles said if you’re looking for updates shared from games, check out your Games stream……………
Google is planning to debut a platform for social games that would compete with offerings on Facebook. The Silicon Valley search giant has approached developers to put their games on Google‘s new social networking service Google+, according to people knowledgeable about Google‘s plans who did not want to be identified because of confidentiality agreements. The plans, reported by technology blog AllThingsD, could be announced as early as next month. A Google spokesperson declined to confirm the report, saying only that the company plans “to add a lot of features and functionality to Google+ over time.” Google is trying to counter Facebook Inc., which is competing with the Internet search giant for eyeballs and advertising dollars. An investor in San Francisco social gaming company Zynga Inc., Google aims to keep Facebook from dominating the lucrative market for social games, which has become a major revenue stream for the world’s most popular social network. Google+ is Google‘s most aggressive effort yet to crack the evolution of the Web from a place that connects people to information into a place that connects them to one another. It has amassed 20 million users in three weeks, according to research firm ComScore Inc. Adding social games could liven up Google+, which has far fewer users than Facebook’s 750 million-plus and fewer bells and whistles. Google+ requires an invitation. Facebook requires makers of applications on its platform to pay 30 percent of revenue collected from selling virtual items on the network. One way Google could compete is by offering to take a smaller portion of game publishers’ revenue. About 250 million people play social games, but only about 2 percent to 3 percent of them spend money on virtual items or power-ups that enable players to advance faster in those games. That means social games require a large pool of players to cull a handful who will pay.
