Game On -- Google Poised To Take On Microsoft, Amazon

Google has appointed Jade Raymond, who worked for nearly eight years at Electronic Arts and Ubisoft creating games like Assassin's Creed, to vice president.

"I'm excited to finally be able to share that I have joined Google as VP!" she wrote in a Twitter tweet on Tuesday. Her LinkedIn profile also reflects taking the position in March. 

The industry can expect a major announcement from Google at the Game Developers Conference held next week on March 19, where the company plans to unveil a gaming project and other news. 

On Wednesday, Google announced a suite of advertising products for in-app gaming, including Smart Segmentation, which segments players and serves ads based on their likelihood to make an in-app purchase.

But for weeks the industry has heard rumors that Google plans to launch a subscription streaming service using Project Stream, a service that allows people to play video games by streaming them in Google Chrome. 

While data estimates growth is slowing, eMarketer expects revenue from advertising in games to reach $3.67 billion by 2020, up from $2.8 billion in 2018.

Google has dabbled in gaming for years, but the latest changes will place it in competition with companies like Amazon Twitch, Microsoft and others. Reports suggest the search giant will become the first of many non-traditional companies to enter the gaming space in 2019.

As other media outlets point out, Google needs to produce games to compete. The company has the cloud service technology and the YouTube video platform to support Project Stream.  

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