Google's Next Move in the Games Space Lies With the Newly Launched Google+

Google launched a trial of its new social networking service, Google+, earlier this week. While games aren't a component of the ongoing closed trial period, source code that has been uncovered suggests it will likely adopt Facebook-style games at some point.

The code makes numerous references to what would be used to notify users about games, Engadget reports. "... have sent you Game invites and more from Google+ Games" is found in several locations, as are mentions of what sounds like an unrelated question-and-answer component that might compete with Quora.

We've known for some time that Google was making a move into the videogame space, it just wasn't clear in what capacity it would do so after its failure with Google Lively. Google made headlines recently with a job posting for a games product manager at "Games at Google." But more than a year ago, Google was already seeking a games project manager before investing upwards of $100 million in FarmVille maker Zynga.

Zynga has primarily made its fortune with Facebook games. It seemed as if Google wanted to compete with Facebook in the social space as it also proceeded to speak with EA-owned Playfish and Disney's Playdom about possible support presumably for what has become Google+.

Throughout the course of 2010, it continued to expand further, acquiring social game company Slide for almost $200 million, investing several million in Ngmoco, and buying startup SocialDeck.

It did lose its developer advocate for games, industry vet Mark DeLoura, last summer, but that doesn't appear to have killed Google Games by any stretch.

There's no official word yet on when (or if, although it seems incredibly likely at this point) games will officially be adopted by Plus. A Google spokeswoman wouldn't address the subject specifically but did tell All Things Digital, "It's important to keep in mind this is an ongoing project and this is just the beginning. We plan to add a lot of features and functionality to Google+ over time. We're just excited to get started."

Google already sells videogames through its Chrome web store that was launched this past December.

history of video games new video games online games pc game reviews pc games download