Over on Android, Google introduced its Google Play Games service a while back, but the problem was that it was tied to Google+ and your identity through that. It’s a rare exception to the status quo in gaming, where avatars and nicknames are the order of the day, even in Game Center. Plus, for some people, there’s a group of online friends they might be comfortable being Google Play Games friends with, but not necessarily “here’s my Google+ identity revealing my real photo, name, and email address" friends. But that’s about to change, as Google is now introducing Gamer ID with Play Games, which lets you create a unique username AKA “Gamer ID" and a series of profile images to use, instead of your real photo and name.
This is starting to roll out today, but the complete rollout is taking a few weeks. Also, games will now be able to automatically sign in with an account. Since Android devices have multiple user accounts support on one device, it should be possible to sign in to games with accounts automatically that are still independent of other device users, but we’ll see how that works. While much like Android gaming in general, this is a bit late, it does seem pretty cool. And hey: at least it’s functional, unlike Game Center in iOS 9.
