YouTube expands Playables (mini casual games) to all users

YouTube has begun to make Playables video games available to all users on Android, iOS, and desktop. The business plans to expand the availability of Playables in the coming months, so games may not be available immediately on your device.

Free-to-play Playables games can be found in the YouTube mobile app's Explore menu, which can be accessed by clicking the compass button in the top-left corner of the homepage. The video-sharing behemoth has transformed into a gaming platform, with over 75 games available through the YouTube app or website.

In other words, you won't have to go through the trouble of downloading and installing these games onto your smartphone. To begin playing the game, tap any game card. You can also share it with your friends by tapping the three-dot menu button.

YouTube's Playables portfolio offers popular titles like Angry Birds Showdown, Words of Wonders, Cut The Rope, Tomb of Mask, and Trivia Crack. Desktop users can access Playables games using a separate URL.

About a year ago, the company announced plans to become an online gaming platform. In September, YouTube said that it is testing the video gaming experience with select premium customers on Android, iOS, and desktop.

The Playables experimental feature was removed in March of this year, and its future status is unknown. It turns out that the latter was correct.

YouTube Playables mobile games are compatible with desktop web browsers Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, according to their support page. Meanwhile, you'll need at least version 18.33 of the YouTube app on your iPhone running iOS 14 (or later) or your Android smartphone running Android 12. The games will only work on smartphones running Android 8/8.1/9/10/11 with 64-bit or high-memory 32-bit processors.

All progress in the games you play on Playables is linked to your YouTube account and synced across supported devices. This implies that if you disable YouTube History, the games you play will not be saved to it.