There are some references in the Google+ app for Android to an unpublished app named "com.google.android.apps.oneup" that seems to be related to gaming.

I'm really interested to see where Google is heading with their gaming strategy.

My first and only thought is "Google will fuck this up"

Google has an incredible amount of talent under its roof and has established a brilliant apparatus for drawing more talent in.

The problem is that Google has the wrong people making major decisions, and if it doesn't find a way to fix that, its next 50 years will be pure mediocrity. Talent doesn't matter if the direction is nukular buttfail.

One thing I like about Google is the ideology of being non-editorial. This served it very well in web search, where being non-editorial is necessary (because of the size of the problem) and stately, but it's an unmitigated disaster in game selection. Farmville was good for Zynga but bad for Facebook; it clogged the channels with spam, contributed to social network fatigue, and marred Facebook's reputation.

To get games right, you have to be editorial. The only way a general-purpose social network is going to beat Facebook in the next 5 years is if it generates an excellent games brand. In-house game development wouldn't work at Google, so the solution is to form relationships with top indie developers, not to promote (and give preferential treatment, such as early inclusion) whatever mainstream publishers like Zynga throw at them.

If any Google execs are reading this, that'll be $17,500 for the advice. A bargain.

I believe they are being editorial with games already, via the Staff Picks on the Android Market. They certainly are openly editorial with Google Music. So now that they're unifying all that, I guess we can only expect more of it.

Even if Google becomes "editorial" with games, there's no reason to believe that the people in editorial roles will be at all competent. I would bet against it. Google, without a doubt, has hundreds of people inside the company who would be awesome in such a role... but they'll never be picked.

Google's founders are brilliant, and the line engineers are great, but between those two sets there are layers upon layers of stewing, necrotic incompetence, a result of this being that some really horrible ideas (such as a performance review system that has everyone-- not just managers-- dropping everything for 2 weeks every fall to write reviews) see implementation while good ones die in obscurity.