Google engineer rant suggests Google+ Games was an afterthought

Believe it or not, some people aren't very happy with Google+. Take Steve Yegge, a Google engineer who accidentally posted what was meant to be an internal rant to fellow Google employees to his over 2,000 followers on the new social network. Reposted by many of his followers, the 5,000 plus-word diatribe hits every gory to explain Yegge's beef with Google+.

And that includes Google+ Games. Frankly, Yegge seems to think that the games portion of Google's second attempt at a social network is, well, uninspired. "Our Google+ team took a look at the aftermarket and said: 'Gosh, it looks like we need some games. Let's go contract someone to, um, write some games for us,'" Yegge wrote. "Do you begin to see how incredibly wrong that thinking is now? The problem is that we are trying to predict what people want and deliver it for them."

While that last quip seems to contradict his previous comment on Google+ Games, his message is clear. Yegge thinks Games were an afterthought for Google, which he seems to think is why the search giant enlisted the help of major social game developers like Zynga, PopCap and Kabam to release their existing games on the platform. Yegge has since publicly apologized for accidentally posting the essay rant.

Most recently, Zynga launched its brand new Mafia Wars 2 on Google+ Games. And before that, Google updated the platform with features that, while impressive, have been considered fundamental to Facebook games for some time. Recent estimates put the number of Google+ users at around 43 million, but how many of those are playing games is still unknown. And with sentiments such as this flying around, we imagine much work needs to be done for Google+ Games to be considered a viable alternative to Facebook gaming. If you have about 30 minutes, you can read Yegge's rant in full right here.

[Via Mashable]

[Image Credit: Steve Yegge]

Are you a fan of Google+ Games? What do you think it's going to take for Google to become a true challenge for Facebook in the social games space? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.