[Update: Can be disabled] Google Play Store will start autoplaying store listing videos next month

Update (12/23/19 @ 10:45 ET): The Play Store now allows you to disable autoplaying videos.

There’s one thing on the internet that everyone seems to agree on: autoplaying videos are annoying. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped websites from continuing to use them. To the lament of many, Google Play will soon start autoplaying videos on app/game listings that include promotional videos.

According to the Google Play Console Help, autoplaying videos are coming next month. Found in the Promo Video section on the “Graphic assets, screenshots, & video” page, Google says “beginning September 2019, Google Play will start autoplaying store listing videos to help more users discover your content at a glance.”

One side effect of this move is ads being played before videos. Google doesn’t want promo videos to have ads in front of them, which they say could be confusing for users. So they are asking developers to turn off monetization for the promo videos featured on the listing pages. Developers must do this by November 1st, 2019 to keep the video eligible. In other words, promo videos with ads will not be shown on Google Play.

This move will likely be annoying to some users, but it should be easy to ignore. We hope Google has an option to disable autoplaying videos, at least when on mobile connections. We assume that the autoplaying videos will act like they do on other platforms, playing silently unless the user decides to turn on volume. What do you think about autoplaying videos in the Play Store?

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Update: Can be disabled

The Play Store recently started autoplaying store listing videos, but there was no option to disable this behavior. These autoplaying videos primarily reside in the Games tab and they can be annoying to some users. Thankfully, Google is finally adding options to control when the videos automatically play. You get options to have them play all the time, only on Wi-Fi, and never. You can find these options in the Settings of the Play Store under “General” with version 17.9.17.

Source: 9to5Google

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