Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is working on a new, in-app community forum for gamers within the Play Store.
- The feature will allow users to create posts, share tips, ask questions, and start discussions around games.
We’ve been tracking a new forum-like feature within the Google Play Store for many months. Initially, the clues weren’t sufficient to reach a conclusion, so we refrained from sharing them. But now we’ve seen enough of them to preliminarily conclude that Google is working to build a gaming-related community forum within the Play Store where users can share gaming tips, ask questions, and start discussions. Here’s what we know about the feature, which we are speculatively referring to as Google Play Games Community Forum.
Starting off, back in April, we spotted some strings related to posting in a community within the Google Play Store:
Code
You’re posting publicly across Google Play. Please follow our community guidelines.
To remove a reaction, tap the reaction icon again.
Reactions are used across Google, including Google Play
Participate in this community with a different account
Add a comment
Discard your post?
Add an optional note
Avoid personal details
Your post was deleted
Your reply was deleted
The post was flagged as inappropriate
The post was flagged as spam
The reply was flagged as inappropriate
The reply was flagged as spam
Your post is too short. Try to be more descriptive.
Posting…The above strings indicate that the upcoming feature would allow users to create and delete posts and add comments and reactions within a “community” present within the Google Play Store.
Later in June, we spotted the following new strings:
Code
Posts may appear publicly with your Google Account name and photo. Posts must follow Google policies.
You can delete your post anytime and view all your posts in %1$s.
Remember to keep your posts and comments respectful and to follow our %2$s.
How your posts appear
Your Contributions
Your CommunityThese strings add to the above, painting out a forum-like picture since users will be able to see their community and their contributions.
Along with these strings, Google also added these three URLs:
The URLs aren’t live, but from their structure, we can conclude that the feature is aimed at Google Play Games users and intended to be similar to a community forum.
Now, with Google Play Store v47.4.31-31, we managed to enable the UI for this Google Play Games Community Forum feature to give you an early look:
Google appears to be adding a new “Your contribution” option within the Play Store’s My apps and devices section. Since the feature is still a work in progress, we see some placeholder text, but the accompanying icons give us an idea of what each option means on this page. Namely, we have options related to Likes, Comments, and Posts. Their text description is what makes the purpose of this upcoming feature abundantly clear:
Code
Share gaming tips, ask questions, and get discussions going
Show your appreciation to help posts and comments get noticedBased on all these clues, it’s fair to conclude that Google is working on a community forum-like feature within the Play Store, where users can share gaming tips, ask questions, and discuss. The My contribution section will give users their own profile page, where they can see what they have posted, liked, and commented on other people’s posts.
We know that Google has been trying to push Google Play Games on PC and is working to integrate features from the original Google Play Games app into the Play Store. There’s a good chance this Games Community Forum could be part of the plan to make the Play Store a central hub for gamers. If Google brings the Games Community Forum to Play Games for PC, it could give users a very convenient forum to talk about games across Android and PC, effectively covering a big chunk of gaming and forum platforms.
Google has yet to announce this Games Community Forum feature within the Play Store. Since it’s admittedly too bland to market to users, there’s a very good chance that the feature will be released under a different branding than what we have tentatively given it. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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