Google has a new feature baked into its upcoming Android 12 that will make certain mobile games playable in a matter of seconds, no download required. The goal is to avoid saddling users with longer install times that might discourage them from completing the download, in turn helping developers acquire more users faster.
"It intelligently figures out what are the essential parts required to begin gameplay," explained Greg Hartrell, the product lead for games on Android and Google Play. "It's another example where we've applied machine learning to figure out how that works independently for each game."
The feature works similarly to streaming, Hartrell said, by downloading assets in the background while making the most vital parts of the game necessary to boot the software available immediately. (Although the feature is not a competitor or alternative to cloud gaming, Hartrell added.) Any game using the Android App Bundle publishing format will be eligible automatically, with no extra work for the developer.
Many of the world's most popular mobile games are free-to-play, but they also tend to be larger app files that can take many minutes to download even on fast internet connections. Hartrell said the hope is that speedier install times -- up to two times faster -- will help avoid those situations when users pause a download or cancel it indefinitely.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE