Tablets, foldables, ChromeOS devices, and PCs have the following baseline quality requirements:
| Requirement | Tablets and foldables | ChromeOS | Google Play Games on PC |
|---|---|---|---|
| x86-64 | Not required | Recommended | Required |
| Support resizability, different window sizes, and aspect ratios | Resizability support recommended | Resizability support recommended | Support any or all of the following aspect ratios: 16:9, 16:10, 3:2, 21:9 or a portrait aspect ratio of 9:16 |
| Maintain game state without restarting on configuration change (for example, resize, rotate, or fold or unfold) | Required Support for foldable postures recommended |
Required: resize, rotate, keyboard change | N/A |
| Remove unsupported features and permissions | Recommended In particular, for maximum tablet device reach, do not require:
|
Required | Required |
| Game controls, visuals, performance don’t detract from playability (for example, not blurry or unreadable, all UI usable) | Required | Required | Required |
| Mouse and keyboard support | Recommended | Required if the game cannot be played with single-touch input | Required if the game cannot be played with single-touch input |
| Game controller support | Recommended | Recommended | Recommended |
| High-resolution graphics | Recommended | Recommended | Recommended |
| Input SDK | N/A | N/A | Required if the game needs keyboard to play |
| PGS v2 | Not required | Not required | Required |
Include x86-64 ABI architecture
Add x86-64 ABI compatible versions to all the libraries included in your game to ensure the best performance and stability on form factors such as ChromeOS devices and Google Play Games on PC.
Google has worked with game engine and 3rd-party library providers to ensure device support. You should be able to implement an x86_64 version of your game with minimal work.
With Android App Bundles, the increased x86-64 .so file affects only the upload size to the Play console. Play Store delivers the necessary ABI to each device, so the download size on target form factors remains unchanged.
Audit Android manifest to ensure form factor compatibility
Some common mobile phone and tablet hardware features, such as camera or geolocation, are not available on other form factors. Games that have feature requirements can't be downloaded and installed on form factor devices that lack the features.
You can view a complete list of available features with the following ADB command:
adb shell pm list features
To make your game compatible with as many devices as possible, follow these do's and don'ts:
- Do mark features as optional in your manifest by adding
android:required="false"to the<uses-feature>declaration. This only applies to the features already declared in your manifest. Ensure your code doesn't assume the feature is present. - Don't attempt to use missing features at runtime.
- Don't request unsupported Android permissions at runtime.
- Do detect the available features at runtime and avoid the form factor‑specific code paths.
For more information about manifest compatibility, see the following:
- ChromeOS: App manifest compatibility for Chromebooks
- Google Play Games on PC: PC compatibility and optimization for Google Play Games on PC
A common challenge is that many games request android.hardware.wifi just to check whether a player is on a metered network but could instead use the ConnectivityManager API without requesting any extra permissions (see Monitor connectivity status and connection metering).
Use Google Play Developer Console to help distribution
Form factor filter
Play console support uses form factor as a filter in the following places:
- Android vitals
- Reach and devices
- Statistics
- Rating and reviews
For example, you can filter "Chromebook" in Android vitals to find out your crash rate and ANRs on all ChromeOS devices. Then optimize your game with a clear target.
Device catalog
Device catalog is a useful tool for finding out compatible devices and unsupported devices for your game. Use the form factor filter to find out what devices are unsupported and why. After going to the device detail page, click Show more to check the exact reasons why your games are not supported on certain devices, for example:
- Unsupported ABI
- Unsupported features and permissions
- Unsupported graphic APIs
Fixing the requirements enables players on those devices to find your game in the Google Play Store.
Form factor tracks
You can manage your form factor setting through Setup > Advanced settings > Form factors in the Play console. Mobile, tablets, foldables, and ChromeOS are bound to your default tracks. It is always easier to manage your release when using a single release artifact for serving all the form factors.
You can choose to create a dedicated release track to manage your Google Play Games on PC (if you are in the beta program) or Android TV releases if you need a separate build to manage the features. Once you choose this option, you can’t change it back. When you use separate tracks to manage form factor releases, you have access to different form factors through production and testing tracks.
Use Android App Bundles to manage different features
An Android App Bundle is a publishing format that includes all your app’s compiled code and resources and defers APK generation and signing to Google Play.
Supporting different form factors often requires specific ABIs, assets, libraries, or code paths for different form factors. You can take advantage of Play Feature Delivery, which allows you to add feature modules to your project. The modules contain features and resources that are only included with your app based on conditions that you specify or are available later at runtime for download using the Play Core libraries.
You can also use Play Asset Delivery, Google Play’s solution for delivering large amounts of game assets with flexible delivery methods and high performance.