Andy Walker / Android Authority
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TL;DR
- Google seems to be working on a refreshed UI for paid games on the Play Store.
- It will use a more immersive banner image and display key details at the bottom of the image.
- The new UI is still under development and hasn’t been released yet.
Google has been working on a couple of new features for the Play Store. The company is aiming to make it easier for users to manage downloads, and it now seems that Google is also trying to make paid games stand out from free Android games.
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While digging through the latest version of the Google Play Store app (v53.0), we noticed that the company was working on a new UI for paid games. Right now, the Play Store uses the same UI for both free and paid games, with the only difference being how it’s rendered on tablets, phones, and foldables.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
However, we managed to enable a new UI for paid games on the Play Store that looks much more immersive and impressive. It shows the game’s banner image prominently, with reviews and ratings, age ratings, and device compatibility at the bottom of the banner. There’s also the new Ask Play UI with a scrollable strip of contextual question chips at the bottom, which we reported on late last month.
Though this UI looks good, it currently doesn’t display some helpful information, such as the game’s download size and download count. Google could add that information alongside the other details already displayed in the banner as it continues working on the UI.
It’s unclear when (or if) Google will roll out this new UI for paid games on the Play Store. Though it’s not fundamentally different from the existing UI, it could make paid and premium games stand out more. We’ll keep an eye out for any further developments to this UI.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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