Google Removes Movies And TV Categories On Play Store, What's Going On?

JAKARTA - Apart from being home to millions of Android apps, the Google Play Store is also a place where users can buy movies, ebooks, and audiobooks. However, it seems that users will no longer be able to buy or rent movies from the Play Store in the future.

Because, Google will remove the Movies & TV category from the Play Store. Previously, the Google Play Store offered a large collection of content, now it only sells apps and books.

The category is scheduled to close in May 2022 and users looking to purchase movies can use the Google TV app, which will become the new home for buying movie and TV content from Google on phones and tablets.

The company also sells video content through YouTube, and when it closes the Google Play Movies & TV app on a smart TV, Google installs the YouTube app in place of the purchased content.

So, when a user purchases video content from Google, the user has to use the Google TV app or Google Play Movies & TV to play the content on Android and iOS.

Cited from Ars Technica, Thursday, March 24, Google TV is not only the name of a mobile application and video content store, it is also the new name of the operating system (OS) on Android TV, which users can get on the new Chromecast. On such devices, whatever the user purchases will be built into the operating system.

Google Play launched in 2012 as the home for all Google content. Android apps and games, music, books, movies, TV shows, and magazines can all be purchased on the Play Store interface, and a collection of content playback apps allows users to access every kind of library.

It seems that Google gave up on this idea at some point. Google Play Newsstand closed and was merged into Google News in 2018, and Google Play Music closed in 2020 in favor of YouTube Music.