14 DAY TRIAL // Google+ has just launched a Games section, albeit it's rather sparsely populated at the moment, and plans to open up the platform for all developers in the future.
The site's tens of millions of users should be reason enough for developers to start deploying their apps, but there's another, better one, Google plans to only take a 5 percent cut of whatever developers make from their Google+ apps and games.
This is in line with what Google has been doing elsewhere and with what it charges for its in-app payments API, which will be available for Google+ developers, but the company has now confirmed the small figure.
By comparison, Facebook takes 30 percent of all sales in Facebook apps and mandates the use of its own virtual currency, Facebook Credits.
Apple takes the same cut for mobile apps and is expanding to get the same from any transactions and subscriptions that may be associated with an iPhone or an iPad app.
The reason Google is moving against the grain here is obvious, it wants people on its platforms. This is what Google has been doing ever since it launched, it offers free products and makes it up through advertising. Android itself is free.
It's aiming to do something similar with in-app transactions, on Google+, its Web Store, Android apps and so on. While they're not exactly free, they're significantly cheaper than what the rest of the industry has made standard.
It's a strategy that Google has been pursuing, most of the times successfully, for years, but it remains to be seen if it will be enough to get developers on Google+.
After all, while a lower revenue cut is great, it doesn't mean anything if there's not much revenue to speak of. Google+ may be growing, but Facebook has in excess of 750 million users, hundreds of million of which play games every day.