New Games in a Fresh Destination for Play on Facebook
Today we’re announcing that we’ve launched several cloud-streamed games in the Facebook app and on browser — playable instantly, with no downloads required. We recently had 200,000 people playing our cloud-streamed games per week in limited regions, so while it’s not exactly a secret, I’m excited to lay out what we’re building.
But first, I want to clarify what we’re not doing: we’re not spinning off a separate cloud gaming service. All cloud-streamed games are playable in the same way you play games now on Facebook — whether it’s in our Gaming tab or from News Feed. No special hardware or controllers needed – your hands are the controllers since we’re launching with native mobile games. And you can play these games with a mouse and keyboard on desktop. More than 380 million people play games each month on Facebook, and people will play cloud-streamed games right alongside those playing instant games in HTML5. And if we do our jobs right, you won’t notice how the games are delivered.
Here are some highlights:
- Free-to-Play Cloud Games Launching in Beta on Android and Web at fb.gg/play (we’re not launching on iOS … for now): Our first set of games available this week include Asphalt 9: Legends by Gameloft; Mobile Legends: Adventure by Moonton; PGA TOUR Golf Shootout by Concrete Software, Inc.; Solitaire: Arthur’s Tale by Qublix Games; and WWE SuperCard by 2K Games. In the coming weeks we’ll add Dirt Bike Unchained by Red Bull, and we’ll continue to test new experiences and expand the games library.
- Player Names and Cross-Play: For the first time on Facebook, we’re introducing player names and gaming-themed avatars for players to represent themselves in game instead of using their full name and profile picture. And, all developers integrating Facebook Login for Gaming can enable cross-play between the downloaded version of their game and the cloud version on Facebook.
- Cloud Playable Ads Launching on Android and iOS in the US: Building on our HTML5 playable ads format, we’re launching cloud playable ads. With this new format, we can now support interactive demos from a game’s native code, blurring the line between games and ads.
- A Redesigned Destination for Play on Facebook: Our newly designed Gaming tab includes updated discovery and re-engagement features to help players find new games to try and get back into the ones they’ve played.
Get all the details and learn more about what we’re building in the Facebook Gaming blog post.