I don't see any support for this assertion. When was this decision taken? How many people were allocated to this "need" and for how long? Google has a vast services portfolio and a vast user base. Rather than spending cycles on a complicated area that is not a core competence, why not leverage the many services that people already use to drive interaction with G+? (Which is what Google has actually done, so far as I can tell from the outside.)
As far as I was concerned, Google should probably not have entered the Games space. Why? Because curating game designs is not something it's set up to do, and the relevant competencies don't seem to be in the leadership. Going in, as far as I'm concerned, was a big risk.
My opinion was, and still is, that there are two reasonable strategies:
1. Don't enter Games with G+.
2. Enter Games and do it right.
I saw going into Games in the wrong way as something that would embarrass and kill the product, just as Zynga contributed to social network fatigue in 2011. However, that didn't happen. Google+ Games failed, but its failure hasn't hurt Google+ in a measurable way.
I still believe that unacceptable risk of embarrassment was taken, but the course that events took (G+ Games fails, but doesn't damage Google+ wholesale) was one that I did not predict.
Well, yes. Would you rather play a German-style board game using a MS Hearts interface or in a crisp, modern one using a Google+ Hangout? The latter obviously.
It appears from the outside that the manager who decided not to concentrate on games made the right decision.
"Not to concentrate on games" might have been the right decision-- the games space isn't a strong match for Google's proven competencies, so staying out of it may have been the best call-- but once Google decided to do Games, it needed to do them right. It didn't, because the right people weren't calling the shots.
We did want to make the games unobtrusive, of course. Games were just the draw that would bring people into the network. The idea was that they'd stay and use the features for other things.