Google is always on a crusade with regards to the features it offers through its myriad of applications and platforms. The company has announced that it will be drawing the curtain on features like Gifts, Requests, and Quests come March 31, 2018. Google said that lower rate of usage for these features was why it decided to shut them down.
The company said that while developers were all for features like engagement and reporting tools, Gifts, Requests, and Quests did not see as much use as could have been expected. The company is still giving devs over a year to come to terms with the removal of these once essential features and go about planning with their absence. Features like Sign-in, Achievements, Leaderboards and Multiplayer will continue to be supported though.
Play games services remains an important part of the tools we provide developers, and we’re working hard on future GPGS updates. We continue to be strongly committed to providing high quality services for Games, including new tools such as official Firebase support for Unity and C++ developers, and integration with Firebase Analytics. These changes allow us to focus our efforts on the services developers value most to build high quality, engaging games.
Google has been streamlining its services of late. In December last year for instance, Google said that it will end support for the creation of new iOS accounts given the low usage of GPGS on iOS. At the same time, Google had also said that it will end support for the company’s latest Native SDK release as well.
Additionally, our latest Native SDK release (2.3) will no longer support integration with iOS and going forward we will not be supporting or updating the iOS SDK.
Interesting. This does go to show that the company is still dynamic in launching new features and cutting away old ones if they fail to prove their worth. Often companies keep pouring resources into a program despite evidence to the contrary. Google is definitely not one of these companies. Meanwhile, the number of apps and developers affected by this cut continue to remain a mystery.
