Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Android Google Games

Android 12 Will Let You Play Games Before They Finish Downloading (techcrunch.com) 57

Posted by BeauHD from the saving-you-precious-time dept.
At its Game Developer Summit today, Google announced a new feature for Android game developers that will let users play games before all the game's assets have been downloaded. TechCrunch reports: On average, modern games are likely the largest apps you'll ever download, and when that download takes a couple of minutes, you may have long moved on to the next TikTok session before the game is ever ready to play. With this new feature, Google promises that it'll take only half the time to jump into a game that weighs in at 400MB or so. Now, this isn't Google's first attempt at making games load faster. With "Google Play Instant," the company already offers a related feature that allows gamers to immediately start a game from the Play Store. The idea there, though, is to completely do away with the install process and give potential players an opportunity to try out a new game right away. Like Play Instant, the new "play as you download" feature is powered by Google's Android App Bundle format, which is, for the most part, replacing the old APK standard.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Android 12 Will Let You Play Games Before They Finish Downloading More

Android 12 Will Let You Play Games Before They Finish Downloading

Comments Filter:

  • Disk 2 (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Monday July 12, 2021 @08:40PM (#61576895)
    Load disk 2 to continue...

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 12, 2021 @08:42PM (#61576899)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Signs that a company has completely run out of ideas for what to do next with their software product:

      1. "UI refresh"
      2. ...
      3. TFA.

    • That's great, but Google only focuses on user features. You sound like one of those elite nerd hacker cracker long bearded unix types.

      Sigh, I wish we had a functional techy mobile OS like Linux is to the PC.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The OS installation vector thing is out of Google's control because it depends on the SoC manufacturer. There are some vague standards from ARM but most of them have their own thing, with their own memory layouts and particular requirements that make a generic bootloader difficult.

      A bit like Libreboot for PCs, the early boot stuff is different on every CPU and chipset.

      Full system image backup is something I'd very much like to see though, that would be really handy for crossing borders.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Project Treble didn't cover the bootloader. The confusion may be because there are kinda two of them.

          There is the Recovery "bootloader" that can run independent of the OS. Often manufacturers supply one that allows the user to do things like factory reset the phone. But there is also the real bootloader which is burned into the SoC and some special reserved flash memory inside it. It is much more limited, it can only do some basic stuff like offering a simple shell and flashing firmware images. It's the las

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by larwe ( 858929 )

      How about an option to disable Doze entirely?

      I thought I was the only person that felt this way. We should form a support group.

    • Sorry, instant gratification for the amazingly impatient comes first.

      Who can't wait a minute for something to download without getting all pissy? And how are there enough people with this problem to justify spinning up a new "feature" in an operating system to mitigate it?

    • How about an option to disable Doze entirely?

      Why? You can disable it for specific apps, why would you want it turned off globally? And if you do want it turned off globally, just turn it off for every app. You already have the more-flexible version of this feature.

      How about end-user signed ROMs

      You can already do this, at least on Pixel devices and, as far as I know, on every device that supports bootloader unlocking. Most Android devices don't allow you to unlock the bootloader so you can't run anything other than the OEMs version, which is unfortunate, but the OEM's choice, not

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      >How about an option to disable Doze entirely?

      wait a minute . . . are you calling for a meteor strike on Redmond? :)

  • No great loss... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Excelcia ( 906188 ) <slashdot@excelcia.ca> on Monday July 12, 2021 @08:50PM (#61576911) Homepage Journal

    modern games are likely the largest apps you'll ever download, and when that download takes a couple of minutes, you may have long moved on to the next TikTok session

    So a millenial demonstrates no attention span and moves off to the next squirrel to cross paths... no great loss. Likely the game wouldn't hold their attention anyway.

    • Millennials are hitting 40. They're over the hill now, so their THC-addled minds are mush. This might be a thing for the GenZ kids, actually.

    • Who cares, the game probably just plays itself anyway.

      Seriously, I tried a few phone games lately because, yeah, I'm sometimes bored, but I quickly realized that they're all basically playing themselves with me as the "player" just holding a button on the screen... unless I pay a fee to be spared this inconvenience.

      Are modern cell phone games basically the same as Pachinko machines?

      • The problem with the dirty mobile scum, also called the mobile minority, and the fake gamers, and the 1/10th-of-a-user, is that they have literally never owned a console or PC in their lives. Because of this, the mobile minority can be easily exploited and fleeced of their money. To them, the bullshit that pollutes mobile games is "normal" because they have no frame of reference. It's like someone growing up in an abusive household and then marrying a rapist, they don't know that it's not normal.

        The mobile

        • mobiles struggle to run videogames that ran on 1994 hardware

          How so? Even the iPhone 3G, the first to ship with the App Store, had a roughly GameCube-caliber GPU. (This is considered one generation newer than the SGI Indy of 1994 on which the Nintendo 64 was based.) You do have a point, however, that a lot of mobile games are rush-programmed, paying the penalty for too many layers of indirection [wikipedia.org] in an overly generic engine.

          mobiles are constantly hammers with ads

          I think I know why this is. Unlike Apple, Google made a business decision to license GMS, including Android Market (now Google Play Store), for ha

          • No matter how powerful a system is, if the software is coded like shit, it will run like shit.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tepples ( 727027 )

              a lot of mobile games are rush-programmed

              No matter how powerful a system is, if the software is coded like shit, it will run like shit.

              Full agreement. It's just that the revenue structure around mobile gaming acts as a disincentive to avoid dung heap code.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Saffaya ( 702234 )

        If I may present you with suggestions, have a look at :

        Arknights (tower defense game, tactical)
        Langrisser M (turn based, tactical)

      • There is every kind of game on phones. Unfortunately, the free ones are dominated by free to pay click mashers.

        You can find real games, though. The best way is probably to read reviews, because there's just too much in the store with too little organization to find anything you don't already know about.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tepples ( 727027 )

          You can find real games, though. The best way is probably to read reviews, because there's just too much in the store with too little organization to find anything you don't already know about.

          Are there games that are best played with a clip-on gamepad? Or is there an expectation that every game for iOS and Android must be playable start to finish with only on-screen touch controls?

          • There are lots of games like that. Some of them even have gamepad support :) you can achieve it for other games with stuff like tincore keymapper though.

      • With far less physical ball bearings. Same amount of sound though.

    • Why would you think people who refuse to sit and stare at a loading indicator have attention span problems. There are only so many hours in a day and there are untold better things to do than stare at something uninteresting while it completes it's automated task.

      • You are absolutely, 100% correct. There are untold better things to do. But your answer actually implies the only two choices are "change the OS to allow you to play a new game as it downloads" or "stare at your phone while it loads". That leads me to believe you too are a millennial.

        So, look up. The world exists beyond the 12' radius you are currently limited to because of the tilt of your Phone Neck. Playing THAT game, no matter what how cool it seems right this second, is not in fact an emergency.

        • That leads me to believe you too are a millennial.

          Not sure why you think that's relevant. Do you somehow think there's something unique about a 40 year old with a wife, kids and a house? Or something unique about a group that makes up 22% of the entire population?

          But back on topic:

          But your answer actually implies the only two choices are "change the OS to allow you to play a new game as it downloads" or "stare at your phone while it loads".

          Your response implies that you have critical thinking skills. This leads me to believe that you are stupid. You see there are many MANY things and ways to get around this waste of time. Google just made one of them easier. I don't know why you think supporting the idea that someo

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Back in the 1980s when home computers got popular but we had to wait several minutes for games to load from tape they often included stuff to help you fill the time. Loading screens and music, even mini games.

      Kids getting bored quickly is not new.

      • [Home computer games on cassette] often included stuff to help you fill the time. Loading screens and music, even mini games.

        I know exactly why things like Invade-a-Load [wikipedia.org] stopped being common. It was U.S. Patent 5,718,632 [google.com] and foreign counterparts, assigned to Namco. Apparently the USPTO thought the shift from magnetic storage to optical discs was enough of an inventive step to give Namco a 20-year legal right to financially destroy any other company that attempted a loading screen mini-game.

      • I remember figuring out that I could save programs on my Atari tape drive, and then take the tape and record music on it, and the programs would still load *but I'd get to hear the music while they did*. Completely gamechanging.

    • Because people who play mobile games have long attention spans in the first place...
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Thank The Heavens! (Score:5, Funny)

    by devphaeton ( 695736 ) on Monday July 12, 2021 @08:58PM (#61576923)

    Waiting both of those minutes for the game to download is absolute torture!

  • If this is what accounts for "innovation" now in smartphones, then they are well and truly "done". Like - they've gone as far as they can go. Now we just need regulators to smash those app store monopolies, and then call it a day.

    • The Last Of Us and Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age already made use of this technique, and I am certain there are many prior examples. As usual, mobile technology falsely claims a first.

  • Flash had this kind of thing (preloaders, possibly playable) a long long time ago.

  • That'll chew up some memory, but Hey! Then we can require them to buy new phones with more memory!
  • I do not see any issues with upcoming new Android 12. I realize that some apps might not work properly with it, but it is a natural problem of compatibility conflicts between new things. Devs can use Android Bug Hunter [androidbughunter.com] to test and see any flaws and bugs in apps that prevent them from working well with new Android version, and fix it right afterwards.

  • Sure a 400MB mobile game getting faster is nice and all, but maybe we can address the 100GB downloads instead...

    • Have to agree, though having everything uncompressed does wonders for loading times (the game has to uncompress it anyway), I am certain that time that would be saved on the download far outstrips whatever you save in load times.

      • Oh absolutely but compression isn't the point, a typical 100GB game has 10+ hours of content, not all of those assets are relevant at the start. Sure it's a bit harder for an open world game, or online / multiplayer games where game assets are randomised based on server. But single player campaigns could at least be started with a fraction of the download complete.

  • Please take the time to think about how far we have come, and then about how little phoners* care (unfortunately phoners learn to have no attention span, partly from all the advertisements every few seconds and partly because app developers want it that way).

    *phoner: is your phone glued to your face? you are a phoner.

  • Does not say much good about us as a society.
    It's not even just a 1st world problem. It's way beyond that.

  • Kind of nice I guess. (Score:3)

    by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @09:57AM (#61578085)
    I play Android games sometimes. They can take a lot of time to download assets post-install especially if the game is from another country and doesn't have servers here. I imagine this would help a lot too for people in places with bad internet. I don't know why everyone in the comments here is jumping on this like a bad thing. This is really get off my lawn territory you guys.

  • ads (Score:2)

    by Vermifax ( 3687 )

    Will they let me play without ads?

  • Actually, that's really useful, because I hate spending hours waiting for the app to install to be able to use it. It sounds weird and impossible to bring to life, but I know what https://fireart.studio/angular-development-company/ [fireart.studio] can do, so I'm not surprised because these guys are magicians, and I'm sure that people working for Android are not worse.

Slashdot Top Deals

Single tasking: Just Say No.

Close