RIP Google+ Games: service shutters 30 June 2013

Google+ Games, an online casual games site hosted within Google+, will shutter on 30 June 2013. Visiting the official site now shows an ominous yellow stripe that warns users that “Google+ Games will not be available after June 30, 2013”.

For those who still want to play a particular game, Google advises you to contact the developers of the game to see if there is an alternative site still hosting said title. Some games on Google+ Games are also now linking out to alternative sites still hosting the soon to be discontinued games. But what if you’ve paid actual cash monies for in-game purchases on Google+ Games?

Google says that “other games are offering a grace period in which you can use any available credits before the game is shutdown.” Developers on Google+ Play are listed here. This is obviously to make way for the newly-minted Google Play game services announced at I/O earlier this week. Google Play is now a cross-platform  game service that’ll work across Android and Apple’s iOS and will offer Xbox and PS3-like achievements, online multiplayer of up to four users at once on Android, social and public leaderboards as well as cloud saves.

Google+ Games was an interesting idea that was sadly buried under the endless social gaming options offered by Facebook, which the service tried to replicate but never fully succeeded in doing so. It’s all about the social, and the new Google Play games services should hopefully cement Google’s place as a social gaming beast.