• by Colin Kirkland , December 10, 2024

YouTube has made multiplayer games available within its “Playables” gaming platform, highlighting the widespread popularity of social gaming, while stoking newfound competition in the mobile gaming world.

“Multiplayer on Playables lets you play games in real-time with other users,” the company said in a recent announcement.

YouTube is beginning its tests with two games -- “Ludo Club” and “Magic Tiles 3” -- available on desktop and mobile devices.

Playables -- YouTube's “app store” of free “lightweight, entertaining” games -- launched to all users in May with over 75 individual titles directly on the app, including older games that premiered on Google's original HTML minigames service, GameSnacks.

While users have always been able to share their results with friends, multiplayer functionality would make it possible for players to interact within gameplay, bringing to mind the massive popularity of social gaming platforms like Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft, which are used by hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

Gaming is an integral focus among YouTube creators, with gaming content garnering billions of hours of watch time in the app every year. Live gaming competitions, for example, could translate directly to “Playables” multiplayer experiences, providing the Google-owned social app with new opportunities to stoke engagement around its original mini-game ecosystem.

Because Playables includes ads, integrating a social aspect could also help YouTube provide advertisers with more chances to target casual social gamers in a network they are already familiar with.

However, it is difficult to say how many people are using Playables, as the company has yet to release any engagement numbers.

Competition in the free-games and mobile games industry is growing. Meta has made it easier for game developers to publish beta versions of their Instant Games directly to Facebook without review, Netflix is gaining traction with its gaming business, LinkedIn has released games on mobile and desktop, and Sony is developing an online store for mobile Playstation games.

Still, their hosting load is small, and again, multiplayer games could provide YouTube content opportunities too.

So it is a good experiment, and it will be interesting to see whether YouTube's Playables are actually catching on.