Following the news that Google is integrating its Google+ social network into a new game services initiative, the company has revealed that it will close down its ill-fated Google+ Games service.
Now Google will kill the service on June 30, 2013, and is advising those players who have unused payments in Google+ games that data will be migrated to alternative destination websites for some games.
However, for certain games that aren't being migrated, you'll have to spend your credits before June 30. You can find a list of developers and contact information in the Google+ Games support page.
I'm sure *this* one won't get shut down in two years and destroy any value players put into it...
The least they could do is refund the value of any unspent credits by June 30. They could turn it into a wallet balance instead of sending the customers actual money to reduce the cost of doing it.
I believe that Google is different than Facebook, they bet in the social layer thing. So a Google+ game could be on the web, in the game's site but socially integrated with Google+, instead of a canvas inside the G+ site like Facebook does.
Classic Google. Spaghetti on the wall for every product they make and yet their search engine and email are the only ones that still stick. Im sure their Play achievement servers will be shutting down in 6 months too, right behind voice chat and everything else they can't seem to monetize because they stop work on it after 40%.
Would it really kill them to keep a small team of engineers on this service to at least keep it alive? Does it really need to be shut down completely? I'm in the same boat as Tom Hughes. I didn't even know Google had a games service outside of Niantic Labs. This upsets me because there is so much potential just being wasted because of what Benjamin Quintero said, "everything else they can't seem to monetize because they stop work on it after 40%."
I so agree. Google in closing things down is going to do itself a disservice. Google starts a service, I doubt I'm going to be very interested. Maybe after its going and stable after a few years, but not initially.
The least they could do is refund the value of any unspent credits by June 30. They could turn it into a wallet balance instead of sending the customers actual money to reduce the cost of doing it.
:(