YouTube Playables: Everything about Google's upcoming online gaming service

Playables are games that can be played directly on YouTube on both desktop and mobile devices

YouTube, a Google-owned video sharing platform, is testing a new experience called Playables, which would allow users to play games online on both desktop and mobile devices. Playables is currently available to a limited number of users as an experimental service. Users who are part of this experiment would see a section on YouTube called ‘Playables’. It will appear alongside other content on the home feed. Also, they can view and control their Playables history and save game progress in YouTube History.

According to a report on the 9To5Google, Stack Bounce game (based on HTML5) is available for the users in the experimental phase. YouTube has not officially announced the Playables yet, and there is no clarity on the general availability of the feature.

Recently, Google started testing song recognising features for users where they can search songs on Youtube by humming or recording that's currently being played. Users can search, hum or record the song for up to three seconds and it would suggest relevant official music content, videos, shorts and other content related to it.

Bringing a gaming feature on app and website will not be new as a similar experience is offered by Netflix, which also offers simple games based on movies and shows available on the platform. This was started back in November 2021 with five games that now has expanded to up to 70 games.

Another new feature that Google has recently added to YouTube is the new vertical live feed for mobile viewers. It allows creators to stream vertical videos either on mobile or through desktop streaming software. It will be visible to eligible viewers browsing Shorts on the YouTube app.