How to check whether Google Play Games account available on Android device?

Question

I would like to know if there is an account available on an Android device which is registered as a Google Play Games account.

I am using Java, and LibGDX.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Edit: Google Play Games no longer needs a Google+ account as mentioned here

Issue: Asking for unnecessary scopes

 // Don’t do it this way!  
 GoogleApiClient gac = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this, this, this)  
           .addApi(Games.API)  
           .addScope(Plus.SCOPE_PLUS_LOGIN) // The bad part  
           .build();  
 // Don’t do it this way!  

In this case, the developer is specifically requesting the plus.login scope. If you ask for plus.login, your users will get a consent dialog.

Solution: Ask only for the scopes you need

// This way you won’t get a consent screen  
 GoogleApiClient gac = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this, this, this)  
           .addApi(Games.API)  
           .build();  
 // This way you won’t get a consent screen  

Remove any unneeded scopes from your GoogleApiClient construction along with any APIs you no longer use.

---

Original answer:

A Google Play Games account is available when the user is signed in with a Google+ account as mentioned here and here, and that by itself is available if the user is signed in with a Google account, so our first approach would be:

1. Check if there is a Google Account logged-in.
2. Check if that user is logged-in Google+.

---

To check if the Android device has a Google user logged-in:

public boolean isLoggedInGoogle() {
    AccountManager manager = (AccountManager) getSystemService(ACCOUNT_SERVICE);
    Account[] list = manager.getAccounts();

    for (Account account : list) {
        if (account.type.equalsIgnoreCase("com.google")) {
            return true;
        }
    }

    return false;
}

Now, to check if the Android device has a Google+ user logged-in.

You can try to start a login sequence with a Google API client, as mentioned in this question:

private GoogleApiClient buildGoogleApiClient() {
    return new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this)
            .addConnectionCallbacks(this)
            .addOnConnectionFailedListener(this)
            .addApi(Plus.API, null)
            .addScope(Plus.SCOPE_PLUS_LOGIN)
            .build();
}

---

You can also just make use of the BaseGameUtils of the Play Games Services APIs. There are a few samples of how to achieve it in this link.