You can now play 75+ games on YouTube – here’s how

As if we aren’t wasting enough time on YouTube already, the video platform is rolling out a new feature to help ensure you never stop watching. After testing “Playables” for a limited number of users in select markets over the last few months, YouTube is now making its games available to everyone. If you don’t already see Playables on YouTube.com or on your YouTube mobile app, keep an eye out, because availability is widening in the coming months.

As of today, there are more than 75 games available as part of YouTube’s Playables feature. As noted above, you can play on YouTube’s desktop site as well as in the mobile app. Here is what you need to do to find Playables from whichever device you’re using:

1. Go to YouTube.com in your desktop browser, scroll down in the menu on the left side of the home page, and click on Playables under the Explore section.
2. In the YouTube app, tap on the compass icon in the top-left corner of the home page, scroll down and tap on Playables.

You will probably recognize some of these games from the App Store or Google Play, such as Cut The Rope, Draw Climber, Merge Heroes, Om Nom: Run, and Slime.io. They’re each quick, bite-sized experiences that are perfect for a quick break from work.

Last summer, when reports of this feature first began to spread, I wrote that Playables would be dead on arrival. After spending a few minutes today securing three-star scores in Cut The Rope, I’m not quite as confident in my previous assertion.

I still don’t think Playables are going to account for a significant percentage of anyone’s time on YouTube, but they really don’t have to. As noted by TechCrunch, many of these mini-games are already part of Google’s HTML minigames service GameSnacks. I can’t imagine that it required too much work to make them playable on YouTube.

In the end, it’s a win for YouTube if these games raise the average time spent on the platform by even a little bit. If not, we might see Playables on the astonishingly long list of products in the Google Graveyard at some point in the next few years.