USA 2014Video Coverage

Greg Hartrell Wants Everyone to Get Along | Casual Connect Video

August 6, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

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USA 2014Video Coverage

Greg Hartrell Wants Everyone to Get Along | Casual Connect Video

August 6, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

Greg Hartrell believes firmly in the power of games and its growth. “Everyone is a gamer now,” he emphasizes during Casual Connect USA 2014.

Greg Hartrell, lead product manager for Google Play Games, believes that we are better human beings when we get along, and playing games is an ancient way for us to come together that is still in practice today. He continues to be part of the games industry to help realize that vision. It is important to him to make our lives a little better in some way. Even if he were not in the industry, he would be attempting to use technology to do that.

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Greg Hartrell, lead product manager for Google Play, believes that we are better human beings when we get along, and playing games is an ancient way for us to come together that is still in practice today.

Inspired To Make Connections

Hartrell learned to code through making games at an early age. He officially entered the games industry when Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE. He was inspired to connect people around the world to games in their living rooms, and he was proud to be a part of making that happen. Today, he is inspired to see how they are getting people to play together using the devices they have in their pockets.




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When he joined Google Play, Hartrell was asked to help make games more social and to build a thriving games business.

When he joined Google Play, Hartrell was asked to help make games more social and to build a thriving games business. The experience he brought in making large online platforms and in making games themselves at Capcom/Beeline has had a large part in allowing him to build perspective on where games are going on mobile and into the future. He says, “The mix of ‘platform thinking’ and ‘content creation’ is very valuable for what I do.”

Google Play Games is growing extremely quickly, and Hartrell is proud to be a part of that growth. In the first half of 2014, 100 million new players joined, earned achievements, posted scores, and played multi-player games. This makes it the fastest growing game network ever. The team that has executed this and what they have achieved so far bring him great satisfaction.




Designing For The Future

Google Play Games is designing for the future with emphasis on proximity, location, and context. Hartrell believes, “We are still searching for a world where video games bring us together in the same way physical world or traditional games did. Board games, the occasional living room multi-player game, and remnants of arcades remind me those experiences are wildly effective at getting us playing together and making games more fun.”

These days, Hartrell is enjoying playing Hitman: Go. He became a fan of the Hitman series long ago on console. He feels that Go is a fantastic example of delivering a great mobile experience that can be played incrementally while still preserving the tone and satisfaction of solving the puzzles the Hitman series is known for.

Copy of Quests available
What does matter is that the game play is great and fits his lifestyle when he is ready to play.

Hartrell considers the game he is playing much more important than the console or device he is playing it on. What does matter is that the game play is great and fits his lifestyle when he is ready to play. But he is biased toward Android and hasn’t used iOS in a long time.

However, he does own consoles; most important is the Xbox 360, because he helped make it and considers it “pretty awesome.” He also still has his original NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, and Wii simply because of the great games he played on them.




At Casual Connect USA, Hartrell reminded everyone that in June, Google Play Games announced a number of enhancements to their games network. They added interesting developer services like Saved Games and Quests. More information is available at http://androiddevelopers.blogspot.com/2014/06/google-io-and-games.html




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Catherine Quinton

Catherine Quinton

Catherine Quinton is a staff writer for www.gamesauce.org. Catherine loves her hobby farm, long walks in the country and reading great novels.

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