You can now play driving games in your Android Auto car when you're not driving

Google has finally enabled support for games in Android Auto and Android Automotive meaning you'll be able to play games on your car's display when not driving.

The feature previously appeared in beta, allowing access to a number of games which can be played on the screen. There's no retasking of car parts as controllers, so you can't steer with the steering wheel, but it's a move to provide more entertainment in-car.

This change means that full games can be supported, rather than just the HTML5 games that previously appeared as GameSnacks. Those charging electric cars or waiting to pick someone up will now have another option for entertainment when parked.

Google stipulates that games have to work on Android Auto and Android Automotive, so vehicles with Google built-in will get the benefit too.

The news dropped via a new Google Developers Blog, outlining the steps that developers need to take to make their games fit onto car screens, declaring support for those additional platforms.

There will be support for touch via screens, but it will also be possible to use a connected gamepad, so if you're spending a lot of time in your car, parked, and you have a big screen, you can get a better experience.

While Android Auto has been rather slow to adopt gaming on car's screens, Tesla set the standard for gaming back in 2018 with the introduction of classic Atari games. Other providers have been a little slow to react, both on gaming and on in-car movies, something that Tesla also dominated.

Of course Tesla had an advantage, which was consistently using large displays in its cars, while Android Auto is supported on a huge range of screens, from tiny 6-inch non-touch screens, through to huge segmented displays - as with all things Android Auto, there's more to it than just flicking a switch.

It's not exactly clear when games will start appearing for users to try, but with the beta lifted, we should all start to see the benefit soon.