Google to Allow Users to Try Games Before They Download

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The idea of being able to test play a game before downloading it is pretty awesome. More than once I've thought a game looked okay enough to download it, only to then actually hate it within a few minutes. This is going to be causing problems for game developers who then don't make as much money as they should, as they have more people downloading the game than they have revenue coming in. This change should mean that the majority of people downloading the games are people who want to and enjoy playing them, which should bring in more money.

Of course this service will only be available for Android users and it's unknown if many developers would be willing to actually allow users to test their games. The fact is that a lot of them are very similar and some users might only want to waste ten minutes on something they don't already have on their phone, so that could cause problems.

Hopefully, it'll mean that developers who do agree to let users test their games before downloading will try and be a little more innovative so people don't roll their eyes and say they've basically played this game before and don't download it. Apps like those developed by Ketchapp will benefit best from this new service because they are simple, repetitive games that you can play a few times in ten minutes before you decide if you like it enough to download it.

As you might expect, ten minutes is the magic number. The problem with a trial run is that people will just play that forever if they have the option. Even for an already free app it might seem tempting because then it won't take up space on your phone. Having a certain number of turns you can play the trial wouldn't work either as how is Google supposed to remember what you did last if you close the page down? So it makes sense that you can trial the game for a set period of time, see how you feel about it and then decide.

How well this works will depend on users’ reactions. This is set to be rolled out within the next few weeks and if not enough people are searching  for apps on Google or are even just not trialling the games then it will flop. I personally think that would be a shame because for paid apps this could work really well. I for one won't pay for an app if I'm not certain that I'll like it. I don't want to pay a few quid and then uninstall it after five minutes, but if I could try it first then I'd know before I spent the money. However because of this a lot of paid apps might not actually provide trials, it depends how their sales fluctuated.

It seems unlikely that we'll see anything like this on iPhones any time soon. This could partly be because mostly iOS users are more willing to pay for a game then Android users - which has caused strife in the past - and also because Apple on big on apps not playing with their interface which these trials might be seen as doing.

Android users should look out for this on Google and play as many games as you can before the trial time runs out.

Rosina Brooker

Rosina is a Songbird rookie with a degree in Creative Writing. She's trying to focus on her novel on the side but is hoping that Content Writing will turn out to be a good career choice in the mean time! Follow her @Songbird_Rosina

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