Google Play Games for PC beta goes live and gets shown off - Chrome Unboxed

Having officially begun its roll out at the end of January for Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan, the Google Play Games for PC beta still hadn’t been seen much at all until now. There was an official trailer that launched with Google’s announcement, and it even showed off some of the client’s interface elements, but no real-world usage up front.

Now, a user on Twitter who goes by the name @BakaChocolate and then later picked up by Mishaal Rahman, has shown off their early install experience, which indicates that said roll out is beginning to reach more people in an official capacity.

The beta for Google Play Games for PC is now available! Google announced the beta test in January for three markets (Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan), and I'm told it recently went live. Here's a video showing the PC client, courtesy of @BakaChocolate. https://t.co/KBQo0XF4BT

As we stated in our previous coverage, the client is available on Windows PCs, but not in the United States or other regions aside from the three listed. This makes sense as mobile gaming is way bigger and more widely accepted outside of the U.S., especially when it comes to micro-transactions and the ethos surrounding them, but it’s still saddening as I can’t wait to get my hands on this for myself.

You could technically download it right now, but if you don’t already have a Google Account created for one of those three markets, you won’t be met with anything but the beta wait list notice.

In the video, you can see @BakaChocolate navigating through all of the sub menus and scrolling down the list of games in the Windows app. It looks as though anything not already installed links the user out to the Google Play Store with a white button to download it before returning to the client to play it. I was initially under the impression that Google would take the route of automatically installing it on your behalf without having to leave the app, but the game’s details may be more full on the Store’s website, so the logic behind this may stand, even though I don’t like it.

Additionally, you can see that while visiting their profile, a section for achievements and such does appear, and while it’s empty, it’s going to be awesome seeing my hard work on mobile translate to a desktop or laptop in the future. I’m still trying to understand how many titles will truly feel cross-compatible with mouse and keyboard or gamepad input, as so few really seem to have it on Android, but my hope is that many will surface in the months to come, creating a truly unique mobile to desktop experience.