[cthackers]

I don't get why everybody is so whiny and bitchy about what Google does and does not. It's a public company that's in it for money and all the stuff they make and you use for free - be it good or not; costs a lot of money to maintain and host and develop and all that.

It's not their responsibility to privately mail you their road map and spendings and ask your opinion about what to do with their money. I hated when they close products I'm using and I do use a lot of google stuff. But .... for the love of god people...

[mindcrime]

I'm really not sure why your reply is attached to my comment above. I'm not bitching about anything, just observing some random thoughts that one could apply to this sort of decision. I don't begrudge Google anything for shutting down G+ Games, as I never played the first one of them, nor was I ever likely to.

It's not their responsibility to privately mail you their road map and spendings and ask your opinion about what to do with their money. I hated when they close products I'm using and I do use a lot of google stuff. But .... for the love of god people...

Riiight, not sure if that was meant to be directed to my reply, or if that was happenstance, but I certainly don't claim that Google have a responsibility to mail me anything or solicit my opinion on anything.

That said, it's pretty clear why people make a big deal out of these announcements: Google are so large and powerful and have such a disproportionate amount of influence over what happens on the Web these days, that everything they do impacts a lot of people and likely has ripple effects throughout the entire ecosystem. So it's hardly unreasonable for people to take notice and comment on this stuff.

[notahacker]

I'm pretty sure the OP wasn't expressing anything of the sort.

That said, the time invested by the developers on the platform and money spent on in-app purchases (via Google's in app purchasing platform) isn't free.

I'm not going to shed crocodile tears for the likes of Zynga or people that buy far too much credit on their games, but I think Google can and do have a little responsibility towards those groups which they're shamefully abdicating with the style and timing of this announcement.