Google+ Games was not successful. I don't think it's that kind of community. So it makes sense to shut it down if no one was using it. Wouldn't you agree?
Maybe yes, maybe no. I don't think any of us here in the peanut gallery have enough information to really say. I mean, we can - I suppose - take Google at their word that it wasn't "successful" but we don't know things like:
1. Why wasn't it successful?
2. How are Google defining "successful" here?
3. Are there other decisions or investments that could still be made to make it more "successful"?
4. What are the possible n-th order effects of having a Games ecosystem, even if it isn't seemingly "successful" in isolation?
4.5 - what are the n-th order effects of the shutdown notice? How will developers react to this? Does it damage trust in Google as a brand? Will there be "downstream" fallout from this?
5. What, if anything, does this say about the possibility of an "apps" (non game) ecosystem within G+?
6. Etc.
Now I'm not saying Google are wrong to do this... from their perspective it may well be the right decision. Or it might not. Even companies full of very smart people don't always make good decisions on everything.
Because the desktop as a target for casual gaming is pretty much dead and the social network desktop web site as a portal to web-based casual games is likewise pretty much dead; Google+ Games was an implementation of Facebook's social-network-web-site-as-portal-for-web-based-casual-games model. A model which even games that integrate with Facebook (for signon, finding opponents, and posting to the Facebook stream) are abandoning in favor of native (usually mobile) games interacting through APIs but not integrating with the social networks Web UI. That model was past its peak when Google+ Games was introduced, and is pretty much dead now (and G+ has much less legacy motivation to retain support for it than Facebook does), so its out the window.
> 4. What are the possible n-th order effects of having a Games ecosystem, even if it isn't seemingly "successful" in isolation?
Irrelevant, because Google isn't abandoning the idea of having a "Games ecosystem", even one with interacts with Google+ deeply, they are just recognizing that the way to do that isn't to restrict that ecosystem to the G+ Web UI as a portal. That's why the announcement that Google+ Games was being phased out was pretty much simultaneous with the announcement of the availability of the cross-platform (iOS/Android/Web) Google Play Game Services API. (Which is integrated with Google+ -- it subsumes Google+ Sign-On.)
> 5. What, if anything, does this say about the possibility of an "apps" (non game) ecosystem within G+?
The apps-within-social-network-web-interface model, which was dominated by games, is basically dead in favor of apps (including games) that interact with social networks via an API but which are not web applications integrated with the social network web API as the exclusive portal through which they are accessed. So, insofar as you refer to that model for G+ when you refer to an apps ecosystem "within" G+, you should probably take the shutdown of G+ games as a recognition that Google has little current interest in that model.
As far as an ecosystem of apps (both web and native [especially mobile, in the latter case]) which integrate with G+ features like the message stream, Hangouts, profiles, etc., the recent pushes behind G+ for SSO, the Moments API, the Hangouts API and the move to raise the profile of Hangouts, etc., should be a clue there.
It's not their responsibility to privately mail you their road map and spendings and ask your opinion about what to do with their money. I hated when they close products I'm using and I do use a lot of google stuff. But .... for the love of god people...
It's not their responsibility to privately mail you their road map and spendings and ask your opinion about what to do with their money. I hated when they close products I'm using and I do use a lot of google stuff. But .... for the love of god people...
Riiight, not sure if that was meant to be directed to my reply, or if that was happenstance, but I certainly don't claim that Google have a responsibility to mail me anything or solicit my opinion on anything.
That said, it's pretty clear why people make a big deal out of these announcements: Google are so large and powerful and have such a disproportionate amount of influence over what happens on the Web these days, that everything they do impacts a lot of people and likely has ripple effects throughout the entire ecosystem. So it's hardly unreasonable for people to take notice and comment on this stuff.
That said, the time invested by the developers on the platform and money spent on in-app purchases (via Google's in app purchasing platform) isn't free.
I'm not going to shed crocodile tears for the likes of Zynga or people that buy far too much credit on their games, but I think Google can and do have a little responsibility towards those groups which they're shamefully abdicating with the style and timing of this announcement.