YouTube Premium users to get Playables section within the app

In an effort to lure users to subscribe to its paid Premium service, Google-owned YouTube is rolling out a new feature called Playables, which will let users play games directly on the platform. Also Read: YouTube Gets Dedicated Mental Health And Wellbeing Section For Teenagers: Who Can Access, What's Special?

Playables is a separate section of the YouTube app or desktop website that lets users play arcade games without downloading anything. Also Read: YouTube’s Next Big AI Upgrade: Lip-Syncing For Auto-Dubbed Videos Coming Soon

When users enter Playables, they will see two tabs — Home and Browse. Also Read: YouTube Premium Lite In India Launched: Enjoy Ad-Free Experience At This Price Now

The Home tab shows a selection of popular titles as well as a list of recently played games. The Browse tab, on the other hand, has a larger selection of games, with around 37 currently available.

Popular titles such as Angry Birds Showdown, Brain Out, and Daily Solitaire are among the first games available on Playables. While the current library is small, more games are expected to be added in the future.

Playables is currently in beta testing and is only available to a select group of Premium subscribers. YouTube, on the other hand, plans to gradually expand access to Playables in the coming months, the report noted.

YouTube intends to continue offering Playables until March 28, 2024, at which point the company will evaluate its performance and make a decision on its future.

Meanwhile, YouTube has said it is testing new generative AI features that’ll let people create music tracks using just a text prompt or a simple hummed tune.

The company introduced Dream Track, an experiment on YouTube Shorts which is powered by Google DeepMind’s most advanced music generation model to date, Lyria.

In other news about YouTube, the company recently admitted that non-premium users of the platform who use ad-blockers may experience suboptimal viewing.

Several users on Reddit confirmed that they are noticing a delay of five seconds when trying to load a video on Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge. However, these users didn’t notice any such delay on Chrome.

YouTube later confirmed that it isn’t targeting any specific browser. However, it confirmed that those with ad-blockers may face some issues. The company is trying to promote its Premium plan for its users.

“To support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favourite content on YouTube, we’ve launched an effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience,” a YouTube spokesperson was quoted as saying.

—Written with inputs from IANS