You may not know this, but Google hosts a yearly event specifically for mobile game developers called Google For Game Developers Summit. The event spans two days and starts today, on July 12. In preparation for it, the search giant has released the full schedule and prepared premieres on YouTube for the keynotes, both of which contain little nuggets of information for us to speculate on, first spotted by XDA-Developers.One eye-catching detail is the description of the ‘delivery space updates’ keynote. In it, Google shares that Android 12 will receive ‘a transformational feature’. It sounds as though a new way to download games will be introduced that will somehow decrease or eliminate the wait time to start playing them.
Users want to start playing right away, but as game quality keeps improving, their size increases, leading to long, dull downloads. Hear about our continuous investment in the delivery space and its impact on the user experience, as we unveil a transformational feature for Android 12 devices, announce new features built on top of Play Asset Delivery, and share partner success stories.
This could be a game-changer (ha!) since many games like GWENT: The Witcher Card Game, for example, measures more than 3GB making it quite the wait until you start playing. Others, like Genshin Impact, are only 151MB to download from the Play Store but then require an incredible amount of additional 8GB worth of downloads.
A few years back, in 2018, Google also implemented the option to try out games before downloading them. The new ‘transformational feature’ somewhat reminds us of that welcomed addition, and it wouldn’t be surprising if it borrowed some code or at least inspiration from there.
New “Game Mode” APIs
In another keynote, Google has also teased that new “Game Mode” APIs will be arriving in Android 12. The description here reads that users will have the ability to choose between a frame rate/high-performance mode and a battery saver one.
Gamers want to customize their experience for highest frame rate or greatest battery savings. Android 12 introduced new APIs for games to respond to user preferences. Integrate and test your game today to prepare for upcoming phone launches.
The thing that makes you go “oh wait” here, is the mention of testing games supporting the new feature to prepare for upcoming phones. This could mean that the feature might not come to all Android 12 devices. However, it is not too surprising, knowing that the high-performance mode cannot be supported by less powerful chipsets even if they could handle Android 12.
