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Facebook Teams Up With Unity To Create a Gaming Platform To Rival Steam (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the friend-of-enemy dept.

Facebook is now shifting its attention back to capturing the gaming market. The company said Thursday that it's working with game engine Unity to build a dedicated, downloadable desktop gaming platform. The social juggernaut added that it is also broadening the Facebook.com experience for gamers. BetaNews reports: Facebook is starting to take gaming far more seriously. Not content with funneling the likes of Candy Crush through its servers, the social network is now joining forces with the company behind the Unity game engine to create its own desktop gaming platform. The aim is to tap into not only the millions of gamers that are already on Facebook, but also to gather more from the PC-gaming community. It's a new venture that very clearly treads on the toes of Steam, and is likely to cause ripples in the gaming world. The scope of the work between Facebook and Unity Technologies is quite wide. It will bring together Unity's 2D, 3D, VR and AR development platform with Facebook's own game development tools. While Facebook is currently associated with very casual gaming, hooking up with an established serious player in the field means we're likely to see the social network appealing more to hardcore gamers.

3 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm, Oculus store? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Besides the fact that Unity is going to join up with them, isn't this already available now? Personally, I still use GOG whenever possible as they have my respect for not crippling games with DRM.

  2. Oculus Studios by spire3661 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I just want to point out that Facebook does have a 'real' game studio now with published titles and many more in the pipeline. Further they have John Carmack and Abrash in-house. Love or hate Facebook, they now have to tools to make some extraordinary moves in gaming. We are way beyond Farmville here. This is a big announcement.

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    Good-bye
  3. Re:... a sales platform to rival Steam. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why should they bother?

    Same reason StarCraft 2 has Facebook integration: Facebook's product are the idiots it tricks into using the service and people say a lot of things in online games. That depth of conversation is a huge amount of insight into people for them to analyze, package and sell to the governments and marketing agencies of the world.