Playables, YouTube's New Gaming Platform Launches In Britain, US And More

This past week, Google launched a new gaming platform, Playables, for its popular video service, YouTube. YouTube, which already has a presence within the gaming space through YouTube Gaming, now extends its reach with this new offering.

Playables are being rolled out in selected regions, and users in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and the United States are gaining access. As of this writing, 75 games, including Angry Birds Showdown, Cut the Rope, Tomb of the Mask, Trivia Crack, and Words of Wonders, are available for users to play through the Playables tab on YouTube for desktop and mobile devices.

According to reports by 9to5Google and The Verge, respectively, this "experiment" first debuted in September 2023 to selected YouTube Premium subscribers. It later opened up to most subscribers, who received a notification in November 2023 before its global release this May.

It's also worth mentioning that Google owns another gaming service, GameSnacks, which "offers bite-sized HTML5 games online" for desktop and mobile Android devices. Users in the abovementioned regions can find Playables by exploring YouTube on desktop or through the mobile app, tapping the Explore icon at the top left, and scrolling down to find the platform, which will be displayed in-app.

With Apple being their biggest competitor, Google joins a litany of companies pushing into mobile games, as Netflix and TikTok already offer a gaming catalog through their dedicated platforms. However, more recently, Microsoft has been looking to capitalize on an Xbox gaming store that will be available for mobile devices in July of this year, as Xbox president Sarah Bond announced at the Bloomberg Technology Summit.

It remains to be seen how Google's latest "experiment" will fare against the likes of Apple, Netflix, TikTok, and eventually Xbox when their offering arrives in July 2024. While we have no update on the rollout of Playables in other regions and territories globally, we'll update this story once more information becomes available.