Android Games on PC • Hacker News Board

Re: Android Games on PC

#61

Post by makeitdouble » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 1:55 PM UTC

hienyimba wrote: post #20

You can already do this on PC using the Windows Subsystem for Android. The major issue surrounding WSA was that it was too technical to setup for most PC users so we built an app for our non-technical users to solve this. Right now, Google building a standalone app for only Android games (people use Android apps fairly on par with games on PC) and then insisting on a slow rollout will most likely make the product go…

Newbie question, but is there any straightforward way to have Google Play Services in WSA ?

I understand it fulfills the "android" promise, but the majority of the ecosystem needed Play Services is the harsh reality.

Re: Android Games on PC

#62

Post by hbn » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 1:56 PM UTC

Oh boy, millions of ad-ridden, pay-to-win, copy-pasted virtual casinos, right from the convenience of my PC. Gotta get me one of those beta invites!

Re: Android Games on PC

#63

Post by tagoogsucks » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 1:59 PM UTC

Like how Google disrespects Linux users with Google Drive, now they introduce Android games on Google Play (Android based on Linux) that only run on Windows 10 or later. Sometimes Google sucks. It's OK though, Android games suck too.

Re: Android Games on PC

#64

Post by xdrosenheim » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 1:59 PM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #24

m3h wrote: post #17

It doesn't seem to be available in my region yet. The openness of PC means that a second app store can exist and be successful on the Windows platform. If Google pulls this off, we might see a credible, large store of casual games on Windows for the first time. Right now, mobile shines for casual games and sees the bulk of investment for casual games. It would be a great boon for many casual gamers to be able to swit…

I wouldn’t say “shine”. Mobile games are mostly shitty ad ridden apps with in app purchases of coins and loot boxes targeting “whales”.

Many, if not most, big Triple-A titles on PC, and consoles, are also filled with in game purchases of coins and loot boxes targeting whales. I guess you could say that those are also filled with ads, but at least it is for their own stuff in the game.

The only shining thing in gaming currently are the awesome indie titles that just keep on giving from a single purchase of the game.

Re: Android Games on PC

#65

Post by marcodiego » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:01 PM UTC

Waydroid allows one to run Android apps on a standard GNU/Linux distro. Install f-droid on it and be happy. Of course, you won't get google play games but neither will you get ads.

But I can see what google is doing here: release for Android, get the "pc market" for free. In the end it may boost competition on PC, incentivize more multi-platform games and may increase android share among gamers.

Re: Android Games on PC

#66

Post by ramosu » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:02 PM UTC

why

Re: Android Games on PC

#67

Post by marcodiego » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

Jowsey wrote: post #10

On the surface level this seems good. The current Android-on-PC landscape is pretty bleak; your choices boil down to spyware/adware emulators (Mumu, Bluestacks, LDPlayer etc) or Windows Subsystem for Android, which forced me to either use the Amazon Appstore or sideload through the terminal last I tried it. Looks like my account isn't eligible for the beta yet, presumably it's a slow rollout.

> The current Android-on-PC landscape is pretty bleak; your choices boil down to spyware/adware emulators (Mumu, Bluestacks, LDPlayer etc) or Windows Subsystem for Android,

Not in the linux land. Last time I tried waydroid it worked impressively well.

Re: Android Games on PC

#68

Post by makeitdouble » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

bsagdiyev wrote: post #58

zokier wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does WSA have Play services? I think that is where Google can differentiate here.

It can, but it comes with the Amazon app store by default. There are projects around that integrate Play and Magisk.

It looks like they work by patching the WSA installer to get root ? There's a leap of trust needed, as we'd be putting our google credentials into it, but I guess that's par for the course for what is kind of a jailbreak.

Looking at this as an example: https://github.com/WSA-Community/WSAGAScript

Re: Android Games on PC

#69

Post by hfkwer » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:11 PM UTC

flashback2199 wrote: post #11

hfkwer wrote: post #5

Presumably to counter this: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/android/wsa/

The Windows Subsystem for X naming convention is so annoying. It's an Android Subsystem for Windows, but leave it to Microsoft to make sure their product name comes first.

Do you think the Firefox plugin for 1password (random example) is a plugin that runs inside 1password and allows you to use Firefox? Does the Linux driver for ext4 allow you to use a Linux kernel from within the driver, or the other way around? WSA is a "Windows subsystem" that allows you to run Android. That's it. But leave it to HN to always have someone make the exact same comment whenever WSL or WSA is mentioned.

Re: Android Games on PC

#70

Post by axus » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:11 PM UTC

I gave this a quick try, and my first impression is that they've whitelisted games above a certain popularity or monetization level.

On my phone, Google Play library shows about 50 games that I've ever installed which are compatible on my phone and available to reinstall. On the PC, the library is showing exactly one available game.

They have 15 game categories and maybe average 10 games per category. Most of these are ones I've seen advertised, am not seeing anything that looks low budget.

Maybe the next update of Android Studio will let you pick "PC" as a supported platform. There's no ".apk" in my Windows file associations, so maybe no way to sideload things?