Agree: Google does use battery power seemingly without regard to the phone! However, I am amazed at how great battery life is on the i337. [And] looking at your battery stats, I'd say that your phone is doing pretty well power-wise. . .Of course, every person's battery story will be different; and there is no one perfect way to optimize battery life.
Now, I never saw the need to mess with Google Play -at least for battery purposes, but I did quite a bit of power management for my old S2. Taking some of the following steps (plus using some good roms and relatively new batteries) just about doubled my daily battery life.
Here is what I did -it sounds like you've done most if not all of these measures already:
1st Used BBS to analyze what apps were causing problems
2d I uninstalled Google Now (a major battery user) and
3d Switched from Google maps (uninstalled) to Mapquest. (used less battery and less tracking of where I was/am all the time!)
4th I used Greenify to hibernate apps that I rarely used, but which were power-eaters (even when not being used) Greenify is different from TIBU since you can still access the app when you need it without doing anything special!)
5th I used Battery Stats Pro and DS Battery saver to continue my ongoing monitoring and management (balanced) of apps for best balance between quick ready use and saving power.
I have not needed any of those measures on the S4 (but I still don't use G-Now and have really taken to only using Mapquest -even though it is not as pretty as G-Maps. . .) So far I have been at about 60-70 percent after an entire day (0730-2300) of my normal-to-a-bit-active use. That is really really good (for me). Don't know how long that can last, but it is really quite nice for now!
So if you feel you can't get the hours you want out of your S4, I would use Greenify to "chill out" apps that are burning power in the background (but that you will need on occassion) also I would ditch G-Now (unless you really have it working for you in your daily routine). and finally -while BBS can point out much I would recommend using an easier to use battery monitoring app PLUS a "power app" like Juice Defender (that some don't seem to like, but which really can do quite a bit for you especially in the manual mode) or (my preferred) DS Battery Saver.
EDIT: Oh if you delete the updates to play when you go to app management, you will soon have the play store detecting that your version is out of date and you will be prompted to update again -or if you turned off update prompts, then you can simply go to settings and re-enable recommend updates until your play gets updated again. That might be the simplest way to deal with PLAY if you want to work to see if it is running optimally. (might also clear cache -which will cause a bit of phone effort to rebuild/update next boot, but might do something good if Play is draining power in an unusually aggressive manner.
Good Luck!
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