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Google Play unveils ‘play as you download’ for Android games

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

Google announced “play as you download” on Android 12 devices so players can hop into mobile games and begin playing during a download. And it also said Google Play now reaches more than 2.5 billion gamers.

It’s all about reducing the friction for players when it comes to playing mobile games — a topic that I recently wrote about in a DeanBeat column.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.