Level Up: Test Sidekick and prepare for upcoming program milestones

Posted by Maru Ahues Bouza, PM Director, Games on Google Play Last September, we shared our vision for the future of Google Play Games grounded in a core belief: the best way to drive your game’s success is to deliver a world-class player experience .    The momentum since our announcement has been incredibly positive, with more than 600 million gamers now using Play Games Services every month. Developers are also finding success, with one-third of all game installs on the Play Store now coming from editorially-driven organic discovery.

5 billion incremental acquisitions for featured games, in addition to an average uplift of 25% in installs during the featuring windows .     Today, we're inviting you to start testing Play Games Sidekick to keep your players in the action, sharing new Play Console updates to optimize your reach, and helping you prepare for our upcoming program milestones.   It serves as a seamless bridge to the highly visible "You" tab, connecting your game to 160 million monthly active users already engaging there and doubles as an active gaming companion that enhances the player experience with helpful, AI-generated Game Tips.

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor keeps players in the action with Play Games Sidekick Today, Sidekick officially debuts in over 90 games , with the experience expanding to all Level Up titles later this year. But you don’t need to wait for the broader rollout to get your game ready.   Enable Play Games Sidekick in Play Console to begin testing Optimize reach and operations with new Play Console updates We are also rolling out two new Play Console updates to help you optimize your reach and streamline operations: Pre-reg device breakdowns: To aid launch decisions, you can now analyze the device distribution of your pre-registered audience by key device attributes including Android version, RAM and SoC.

This enables you to optimize game performance, minimum specs, and marketing spend for the players already waiting for your game. Identify launch-day risks and optimize performance for your players with new pre-registration device breakdowns Real-time feedback:  With Level Up+ , our tier for high-performing games, qualifying titles can unlock promotional content featuring and tools like deep-links and audience targeting. While submissions must meet Play’s quality guidelines , you no longer have to wait 24 hours to learn about issues.

You can now get immediate feedback on quality whenever possible. Your 2026 checklist: Securing your Level Up benefits Today, all games on Google Play qualify for Google Play Games Level Up. However, in order to maintain access to Level Up benefits like Play Points offers, expanded APK size limits, Play Store collections and campaigns consideration, or access to high-visibility surfaces like You tab and Sidekick, you’ll need to ensure your game meets user experience guidelines by their upcoming milestones:  By July 2026:  Integrate Play Games Sidekick to offer a quick and easy entry point to access rewards, offers, and achievements through an in-game overlay.