FACEBOOK GAMING: ZUCKERBERG LAUNCHES THE CHALLENGE TO TWITCH
The world of video games streaming has officially welcome a new and fierce participant. In advance of the originally planned times, Facebook decided to launch its platform dedicated to streamers , Facebook Gaming . This is a service connected to the main platform, but with a separate app, currently only available on Android. techsmartinfo
In short, a new Twitch has appeared on the horizon, ready to
have its say in a world where the competition is become more and more ruthless.
Will Zuckerberg get the best out of his new toy or will he have to settle for
crumbs?
Surprise launch
Facebook Gaming has been a rather substantial section of the
main social network for some years now. Insides there are a series of small
free game, simple in forms and content. The new apps is nothing more than a
much more important emanation of this services which, in addition to allowing
user to play, will also make them create real content that can be viewed,
supported and commented on by everyone else . All these options, already widely
present in the basic version on the main portal, have been made even more
important in the new app, which will base almost all its operation on this
mechanic.
The idea has been tested for more than a year in select
countries and is now officially landed on Android, ahead of initial plans. In
short, the Coronavirus emergency has hastened the company's plans, ready, in
these times of isolation, to exploit a probably greater audience and to offer
everyone an extra service to be able to play and watch them play.
What is it about
The new apps is nothing more than a video game platform that
offers the same functions as competitors, much more tried and tested, such as
YouTube and Twitch , for years bright spotlights in the world of streaming
video games. In short, content creators will have another platform to be able
to play live in front of their virtual audience who, as usual, will have the
opportunity to intervene live with comments or real demonstrations of economic
support through donations.
Each user will have his own page, each streamer his profile
from which to immediately start a live event and each game will have its own
dedicated page that will facilitate the search for the event and its
dissemination for the purpose of the various communities. The platform will not
have any type of advertisement, with Facebook monetizing everything by taking a
percentage of the donations that subscribers will make to their favorite
streamers.
Games for everyone
The highlight of the service as we have known it up to now
has almost always been the Instant Games , a fairly large catalog of casual
games that are rather simple in form and content, which everyone can try and
which often peek out from our notifications. They are almost always small,
light and impromptu pastimes, within everyone's reach, especially for those who
usually don't play continuously but just like to spend some free time lightly.
Inside you can find almost everything, from sports games to
quizzes, passing through card games, logic games or simple puzzle games. Small
pastimes that have created a community of over 700 million monthly accesses, a
mouth of fire that Facebook wants to try to exploit to launch its new service.
The possibility of directing and participating in it has always been present
within the service but now, with the new app, it will take on a preponderant
role like never before.
Complementary services
From the beginning, the platform offered services that users
have always appreciated and had become, albeit in its own small way, a real
autonomous section within the main social network . Despite being part of the
Facebook mobile application, it had already been equipped for some time with a
personalized news feed based on its most played titles, the live broadcasts,
the groups to which it belongs and the streamers who follow it. Now it has only
been decided to give more autonomy to the whole , making it perfectly
integrated with the main social network: every live broadcast can in fact be
shared also on the main platform.
According to the company's top management, it was simply
following the requests of users, who had long been asking for a separate app
for Gaming. Now everything should be much faster and faster, allowing everyone
to "stream" or play with the utmost intuitiveness . You can even,
through a simple option, start a direct snapshot of any game installed on your
smartphone, shortening the time even more and exponentially increasing the
possibilities of creating content and interacting with your community of
subscribers.
Open challenge
Facebook focuses a lot on the video game sector, yet another
piece of differentiation of services and useful content to allow users to stay
as much as possible within the platform. Now that the social network itself is
no longer enough, it was decided to increase loyalty through other services,
with gaming that has long since become one of the main objectives of this
strategy. In recent years, significant amounts have been invested in the
sector, including platform improvements and partnerships with well-known and
loved streamers.
The same app, in recent times, has shown quite large growth
margins, with an average + 78% of viewers in the last part of 2019. In absolute
numbers, Gaming is still quite far from the success of YouTube and Twitch, but
that of online gaming is a battle in which Zuckerberg does not want to lose further
ground, trying to have his say against the platforms of Google and Amazon and
aiming everything as always on its name and on the strength of its increasingly
large and varied ecosystem.
A long journey
There is still a lengthy ways to go and today, if you look
closely at the numbers, Facebook Gaming is only a small niche of fans , capable
of gaining strength with the name of the brand it carries but with a community
that is not as loyal as that of its competitors. Casual players are numerous,
but the real challenge will be to transform them into an active and
participatory community, which in addition to playing must spend time following
others within the service. In December 2019, 61% of the total share of hours
watched in streaming for video games belonged to Twitch and 28% to Youtube:
carving out a space will be difficult and complicated but the conviction of the
top management is that interactive streaming, especially in the videogame
field, is the key to connecting the members of the future.
Integrating everything on Facebook is a move that wants to
demonstrate, once again, how much Zuckerberg's company is interested in playing
a part of it also for the next few years, not remaining fossilized on its
glorious past but trying to have its say even in those services where others
are better and have been present for much longer.
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