I suggest that Google NOT release a game platform.

Assuming that’s what they’re doing.

Google has been really coy about what it plans to unveil at this year’s Game Developers Conference. They sent mysterious invites out, a patent for a game controller surfaced, and now they’ve released an interesting video. The video doesn’t reveal much, but it does show several scenes that could very easily be parts of games. At the end there’s a little sound that could be their chime for a game console, which is the prevailing rumor. The video description reveals that the presentation will happen on March 19, 2019 at 10 AM PDT when they “unveil Google’s vision for the future of gaming.”

For three reasons: one, Google isn’t in the business of making games. They’re in the business of spying on their users and then selling the info to third parties. Two, they definitely aren’t in the business of making hardware, like game consoles (or social monitoring/compliance equipment for the People’s Republic of China). Three, Google is probably going to be spending 2021 explaining to Congress why they shouldn’t be rendered down to a heap of forcibly dis-articulated companies, so it’s probably not very wise of them to diversify their focus right now.

Moe Lane

PS: Oh HECK no I’m not buying it. I am considerably less paranoid about this stuff than a lot of people, and it’s still raising alarm bells in my head.

8 thoughts on “I suggest that Google NOT release a game platform.”

  1. RE: Point#2
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    They are TOTALLY in the business of social oppression devices for the ChiComs. The GreatFirewall is Chrome™-plated.
    .
    Not that this disproves your point. If anything it’s worse.

    1. I’m guessing that was snark on Moe’s part, since Google actively denied that they were doing any such thing… right up until employees leaked some of the information about it.

      In the non-snark department, they do make the At Home device.

  2. Two words: Cross play.
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    What would have happened if EA’s ubiquitous Frostbite engine (which allows the same game to be played on XBox, PS, PC, Shield, and Switch had included a data-mining codec?
    Alphabet has wet dreams about that question.
    .
    All game engines have rather intensive analytics to monitor player engagement and track engine performance. Taking this a step (or five) farther would be right in Google’s ballpark…
    A box of their own is just a cherry on top. (One they can sell at a significant discount, like they do the Pixel.)
    .
    .
    I’m suddenly grateful for EA’s ethical business practices.
    I’m pretty sure I just lost 2d10 SAN from contemplating the horror of that last sentence.

    1. Hell of a thing when EA can say Well, we might be amoral scum that batten off of entire gaming companies, then mount the husks on our walls — but we’d never do that.

  3. It’s a strange world when I trust Microsoft’s Xbox platform more than a theoretical Google games platform, but this is today’s reality. Ah the good old days when monopolies on browsers and OS were the great tech evil. I miss that innocence.

  4. Between this and Epic Games, the Chicoms seem to be making big investments in mining gamers’ data.

  5. This is where I’m glad that the majority of video games I play were released in the 1980s.

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