Facebook used to be a popular gaming platform and it helped few companies including ‘Zynga’ in building their fortune. Later, it lost the market to mobile devices. To again push its gaming, Facebook has officially announced its ‘Gameroom’ Windows desktop gaming platform. ‘Gameroom’ is the official name after several months of beta testing and name changes. The app is now available for users to download on Windows 7 and higher.
The app is now available for users to download on Windows 7 and higher. ‘Gameroom’ lets users play web, ported mobile and Gameroom games in the Gameroom PC app. So, there will no distraction from gaming.
Now the main task is to convince game developers and bring more games on this platform. Facebook can take benefit of its large user base and invite people to this platform. If Facebook gets success, this platform can open a revenue stream for it.
Facebook takes 30% of revenue cuts from in-game payments.
Facebook first announced a gaming platform back in May and later we saw the partnership of Facebook with Unity Technologies, the company behind Unity cross-platform game engine. Facebook has also announced that Unity 5.6 will allow developers to export their Facebook games directly to Facebook Gameroom.
This gaming engine just a start and I see a huge potential on this. As of now, there is a size restriction and titles cannot be larger than 200 MB in size.
Facebook’s this attempt can be seen as a step to compete with Steam which has around 150 million active users. Steam is the favorite of hardcore gamers. But, Facebook’s this step seems an attempt to take on Steam and take back its lost gaming business.
