The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Google Facebook

Google+ launches 16 games as battle with Facebook heats up

Author

By The Drum Team, Editorial

August 12, 2011 | 2 min read

Google+ has stepped the fight against Facebook up a notch with the introduction of 16 games on the social networking website.

The games, which include Angry Birds, Zynga Poker and Bejeweled Blitz, are another step into the market of Facebook, which offers games such as Farmville.

In a Google blog post, Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering, said: “Today we’re starting to gradually roll out games in Google+. We look forward to making them fully available to everyone in Google+ soon. When you see a Games page in your account, please give games a try and send us feedback. Look for the "send feedback" button in the bottom right-hand corner of any page in Google+.”

On the same day as this was revealed, Facebook announced on its blog that it was launching a new feature in order to make games easier.

In a blog post by Jared Morgenstern, the company announced “When you're playing games, you'll now see a separate stream of your friends' game activity, scores and achievements in a ticker. The best way to find new games is through friends, and now you'll have more opportunities to see what they're playing.

“Maybe your best friend has started playing Sims; your roommate has a new high score on PacMan; or your mom and sister have taken up Words With Friends. Simply click on a story and you can start playing the game yourself.”

However, the Facebook development does not seem to have gone down well with users: below the post, the majority of comments come from users comparing the system to Google+ and saying they would prefer a better chat system to being able to see who is playing what games.

Google Facebook

More from Google

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +