YouTube reportedly testing online games for mobile and desktop

Google is looking at online gaming as a potential new revenue stream for YouTube, according to a new report. wall street journal, The video hosting platform has reportedly invited employees to test a new product called Playables, which gives users access to online games right on YouTube. based on internal email magazine See, it doesn’t matter what device they’re using: Obviously, games are available on both mobile and desktop.

Users will be able to play them on the YouTube website, using a web browser, or on an app, whether on an Android or iOS phone. While the report emphasizes that there are many games currently available for testing, it only mentions stack boom especially. It is an ad-supported arcade game that gives players a chance to break layers of bricks with a bouncing ball. As the publication notes, YouTube already makes money from gaming livestreams, but this product will give it another way to generate revenue from the industry amid declining advertising spending.

While Google failed to grow its shuttered Stadia games streaming service and eventually shut it down, this effort is a different thing altogether. YouTube already has a huge audience, regularly visiting the site, so there will be no problems with tracking the new product. Playables is perhaps similar to Netflix’s gaming product that provides its paying users access to casual games on mobile. Netflix also has big ambitions for its gaming initiative, and is reportedly working on an expansion that goes beyond mobile devices by testing TV games that use phones as controllers.

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