As if Facebook didn’t have enough power already, they are now taking on the gaming world too. Ultimately, Facebook has just released a brand new feature to their Facebook Messenger app and Facebook app called Instant Games, which allows users to play various games from their news feeds or through instant messaging with one another.
There are currently 17 games available, with more to come. All of the games are based on receiving a high score and beating other’s high scores, not about reaching new levels and traveling through various worlds and dimensions. Some games already included are Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Galaga, Words with Friends, Shuffle Cats Mini, and more.
Facebook’s global games partnerships director, Leo Olebe, said that part of this new feature is bringing back nostalgia for players, by including childhood games we know and love. He also confirmed that Facebook wouldn’t go game crazy again, like back in the Candy Crush games, and not to worry about getting millions of notifications and requests.
Some may say Facebook is even a little late in the gaming world, according the article. Google has Google Play Games, YouTube has YouTube Gaming, and Amazon has Twitch to play games. Facebook is just adding to the list.
In class we talked about gamification, and how many of us now play the majority of games on our mobile devices. Facebook, and all of these companies, are quickly realizing this and jumping on the bandwagon fast.
What I found most interesting, and what is relevant everywhere, is that many social media outlets or applications want to do it all. The niche markets that we once had are disappearing, and now the big power companies are fighting it out to see who can have the most features. This way, consumers will go solely to their application for everything, whether its keeping in touch with friends, playing games, watching videos, and more. My question is – just how much power can they get?
https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-instant-games-pac-man-space-invaders/
After reading through the post and the comments it is clear that people have differing opinions on Facebook’s move to the gaming industry. I don’t think that Facebook plans on making this service a primary feature at all, but I think it will be very popular due to the demographic of Facebook users. For our generation, there are better alternatives for gaming outlets like the App Store and even Apple messenger games, and for more serious video game players there are consoles and computers for high end games. Facebook is not trying to appeal to the elitists and I don’t even think they’ll pull much of the younger generation. The demographic they will capture, however, is the older crowd that soaks up easy, free, fast browser games. It’s the reason Farmville was so popular and I think it’s the reason these games will be so popular. The introduction of 17 games is a large amount but I imagine the number will increase/decrease depending on which are popular and the most popular will receive the most attention. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a Facebook profit off of this implementation.
This seems to be an instance of technology convergence. Facebook is attempting to join many other technology giants and grab a footing in the video game market. However, I think Facebook will not be nearly as successful as google or apple. More likely than not, Facebook will have lighter games that would compete with app games such as those on the app store and google play. Google play and the App store are successful because they are the primary source of games for mobile devices. Facebook will most likely have a difficult time trying to get users to use their games because of a lack of incentive. They are trying to break into an already developed without offering much more.
What they could do, which I think would be very successful, would be to implement very simple games like tic tac toe or dots into their messenger app. This would offer games for people you personally know and I believe this is a market that has not been properly explored yet.
The concept of Facebook attempting to undergo the concept of gamification doesn’t surprise me as they continue to try and suck as much money out of users as possible. In my eyes, gaming on anything other than a dedicated console or computer is and will continue to be a sub-par experience. Playing games on a tiny screen will never appeal to me, nor ones that interact through a social media platform. How people find these games amusing continues to baffle me, as they spend actual money on items or ways to get past a certain level. It doesn’t matter if they attempt to use the nostalgia factor to attract users by recreating old school games such as Pac Man. They are just embarrassments to the original, and I promise they won’t give you that authentic Pac Man experience. I hope this trend dies, and social media sites give up their attempts to make money off of users by providing mediocre gaming experiences. Relating to your ideas of these companies all wanting to be able to “do it all” in terms of providing content to their users, I think they are taking resources away from making their core applications better.
As inventive as it seems, Facebook was not the first tech-company to bring video games to their media platform. Apple’s iOS 10 introduced a new feature for iMessage: the ability to play video games back-and-forth between messaging. As we’ve studied in IST 110 earlier in the year, technological convergence is a trend becoming more and more prevalent nowadays. In this situation, however, Facebook and iMessage exemplify media convergence, which is according to brittanica.com “interconnection of information and communications technologies, computer networks, and media content.” Most likely, the two tech companies decided to implement video games into their media platforms because it would get users hooked and have them stay on the application for a longer period of time than they would have if they hadn’t have played the video games. As the years go on, I’m sure we will see Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook come up with even more improvements in media convergence to allow users to have the best technological experience they could possibly have.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/29/messenger-instant-games/