YouTube is internally testing a new feature that will enable users to play online games via its mobile apps and web browser on a desktop.

Alphabet Inc isn’t done dipping its toes in the online gaming market just yet. After failing to capture a bigger piece of the pie with Stadia, the company is reportedly looking at other avenues to venture into gaming. Reports suggest that the company is now looking at YouTube as a possible source for tinkering into the world of online gaming.

For the unversed, YouTube is already an important platform for livestreaming games, from which it earns a sizable part of its income. But now, the company is reportedly planning into expanding into gaming further with a new feature in development.

The company, according to a report by The WallStreet Journal, is internally testing a product or feature called Playables. This new feature will enable users to play games online. Furthermore, the report says that the company has reportedly invited its employees to begin testing the new YouTube product and that it is adding new games to the product for testing. The list included titles such as arcade game Stack Bounce.

What’s more? The report says that its new Playables feature will not only enable users to play games on YouTube’s official website via the web browsers when it is officially rolled out, but it will also enable them to do so as they access YouTube on Google’s Android mobile operating system and Apple’s iOS.

A spokesperson for YouTube told Reuters that gaming has long been a focus for the company and that the company was experimenting with new features and had “nothing to announce right now.”

Hosting online games on YouTube, which is a popular place for users to stream games and watch livestreamed game footage is part of CEO Neal Mohan’s push into new areas of growth amid a slowdown in advertising spending, the WSJ report said.

While the feature is still in early stages of development, when rolled out, the feature will be something on the heels of Netflix’s gaming service dubbed as Netflix Games that enables users to pick and play light games that are segregated on the basis of genre and maturity ratings on its web-based platform and via its Android and iOS apps. With YouTube, Playables, is likely to follow the suit and give its views another avenue to explore.

It is worth noting that the development comes just a few months after Google shut down the servers of its own cloud-based game streaming service called Google Stadia in January this year. So, it is possible that the company is planning to give online gaming another shot, albeit in a different way, with Playables.

https://www.techlusive.in/news/youtube-is-planning-to-expand-into-online-gaming-with-playables-report-1385800/