Gaming is an ever expanding field, with online and social network options granting more possibilities for developers than ever before. Google realizes this, and has hired Mark DeLoura to be “Developer Advocate” for gaming, perhaps in an effort to compete with the App Store on Android.
“The key to success will become encouraging developers to innovate on their platforms,” says Aaron Goldman, managing partner at Connectual. “Apple has more than 150,000 apps that developers have built on its platform. Android has something like 20,000. I’m not sure hiring one ‘advocate’ can close the gap but it certainly signals Google’s commitment to the developer community.”
Some folks think, however, that they’ve been missing out on opportunities with ad and microtransaction based games. “I’m surprised they’ve waited this long to throw their hat in the game biz,” said SEO-Shop.com’s Steve Gerencser. “Games have always been sort of niche marketing and revenue, but with free and micro payments in games on sites like Facebook, suddenly huge opportunities for in-game advertising are opening up.”
Source: MediaPost {link no longer active}
