Google takes a cautious approach to games

Google has seen the damage social gaming can do to a community, and is wary of opening up Google+ to more games development.

Facebook, the primary competitor to Google+ has embraced social gaming wholeheartedly, but many complain the game related spam has gone too far.

“How do we find that balance between people who are interested in games… without having the problem of more spam?” said Google+ engineering director David Glazer at the inside social apps conference in San Francisco.

Google+ has so far limited itself to a few dozen games, which are currently segregated from the rest of its content.

“What we’re trying to mostly do is put control in the hands of users,” said Glazier. “First and foremost, you choose your audience.”

Google’s approach to social networking has placed emphasis on user control of feeds by making use of "circles"; groups of friends that can be filtered when sharing or recieving content.

Glazier made no promises that games would be given a more front and center approach, as his company was still tweaking the Google+ interface, but he assured the audience that games "will always be distributed in a way that respects the entire community.”