Google Play is failing to serve the interests of app developers and consumers due to the inefficiency created by Google’s hands-off approach, according to Sean Vanderdasson, senior VP of Games Services at mobile games distribution company WildTangent (pictured).
Speaking exclusively to Mobile World Live, Vanderdasson criticised Google Play’s approach of making available “hundreds of thousands of things that are in there that are of varying quality”.
A sign of the poor job being done by Google Play, according to Vanderdasson, is that security software is increasingly being distributed with devices: “They’re clearly not doing a very good job if you have to include security software to prevent the stuff that’s being distributed from Google Play.”
“Google Play is interested in something different than what’s in the best interests of the consumer. They’re in an arms race against Apple with the number of units,” he continued.
The focus on the quantity of apps, while interesting in the early days of mobile apps, has made app discovery on Google Play increasingly difficult.
According to Vanderdasson, this could benefit Google more than anyone else: “Inefficiency plays to their strength, which is, if I can get you to search, then what’s the next logical thing you’re going to see in Google Play? It’s going to be AdWords. It’s the next logical play for Google.”
“If I have a market that has a tonne of content in it and it happens to be kind of clumsy or inefficient, then pay me to make it more efficient for game developers. That is a fairly ruthless way of doing it,” he added.
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