YouTube is getting into games, too
By Amrita Khalid, one of the authors of audio industry newsletter Hot Pod. Khalid has covered tech, surveillance policy, consumer gadgets, and online communities for more than a decade.
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YouTube is branching out into games — at least for its paid subscribers. The platform is giving Premium users access to a set of online games that can be directly played on either the mobile app or desktop app. Known as “Playables,” the company first debuted the experimental feature to select users in September. As noted by Droid-Life, YouTube sent a notification last week to Premium subscribers informing them of Playables and allowing them to try it out. Those who opt in will be able to play a total of 37 mini-games that effectively live inside YouTube — there’s no need to download or install them.
The selection of games isn’t too challenging or “out there” — they include crowd-pleasers like Angry Birds Showdown, Brain Out, Daily Solitaire, The Daily Crossword,and a number of arcade games. And they may not be here to stay. YouTube Premium’s notification stated that the games would be available until March 28th, 2024. For now, Premium members can find the full library of games under the “Playables” section in the Explore tab.
YouTube joins a long list of non-gaming tech companies that are trying to expand into games — often with mixed results. After years of hype, Google officially axed its Stadia service in January. Just a couple of weeks ago, Amazon cut over 130 jobs in its free games division and announced it would “refocus” its efforts. In 2021, TikTok teased what it called a “major push” in gaming, only for owner ByteDance to
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