Any doubt that Google Plus is not making a social media play has been dispelled by the rollout of games on the site.
Games released include Angry Birds, Edgeworld, Dragon of Atlantis, Zynga Poker, Crime City, Bejeweled Blitz, Diamond Dash, Wild Ones and Dragon Age Legends.
Most of these use the Farmville social coercion model, where players need to send messages for benefits, rewards or in the case Dragons of Atlantis, actual combat.
Most, if not all, of the games are available on other sites or social networks. One of the smart moves in the Google implementation is that the games do not spam the normal timeline. Instead, any people you follow will show their game related posts in a separate timeline within the games tab.
For a limited time, developers will only pay a 5% commission on in-game sales.
Google also announced a new, official Google Plus developer site/blog.
With the major player in the social gaming space, Zynga, valued at $US11 billion c;early there is a lot of money to be made in this space. Facebook will not rest on its laurels, so expect more news to flow from this battle.
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