YouTube may introduce bite-sized playable games in place of some video advertisements

In an internal Team YouTube email sent to a select group of employees and then somehow leaked to The Wall Street Journal, a new gaming initiative was tossed around in conversation. At this time, there’s no word on whether it will even be available for public use, but it’s called ‘Playables’, and at its core, it seems to be bite-sized interactive integration for YouTube videos on the web and mobile. These experiences may be as small and self-contained as Gamesnack games, which means they will likely feature simple mechanics and graphics—far from any kind of AAA experience to be sure.

Frankly, Google venturing into gaming again is laughable in my opinion. It apparently wants us all to forget that it recently pulled the plug on Stadia, which is something I’m still clearly very bitter about. The real question here though is: why does this initiative even exist? Is the company hoping to help creators make more money by forcing unskippable games alongside video ads?

If that’s the case, I’ll be sorely disappointed, but not surprised. Is this what Stadia had to die for – YouTube videos that act like Android full-screen game ads? We aren’t yet sure whether Stadia’s technology is behind Playables, but it doesn’t really matter – Google said the tech would “go on to do great things”, and I’m not so sure this counts!

Stadia’s demise really rug pulled a lot of trust I and others had in Google, and ruined the high hopes we all had for the platform as well. It had potential, but Google couldn’t deliver, and it ultimately ended up being mediocre at best despite its great infrastructure. The whole mess also raised concerns about the future of cloud gaming and cast doubt on the tech giant’s ability to commit to anything gaming related whatsoever. However, with ‘Playables’, it seems that even in some small way, the machine keeps lurching forward, right?

Only time will tell if this will materialize into something worthwhile. As gamers, we should approach this news with caution and keep our expectations in check. Again, it’s probably just interactive video ads, and at the end of the day, it means nothing for us and some extra clicks for video creators.