Facebook Officially Announces Gameroom, Its PC Steam Competitor (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: After losing mobile gaming to iOS and Android, Facebook is making a big push into playing on PC with today's developer launch of its Gameroom Windows desktop gaming platform. After months of name changes, beta tests and dev solicitation, Facebook opened up the beta build for all developers and officially named it Gameroom. The app is openly available for users to download on Windows 7 and up. Gameroom let users play web, ported mobile and native Gameroom games in a dedicated PC app free from the distractions of the News Feed. Gameroom will have to fight a steep uphill battle again Valve's Steam platform, which has well over 125 million active users, with millions actually playing at any given moment. Facebook will need to convince developers that Gameroom will share its social network's massive reach and is therefore worth their while. Then it will have to persuade gamers that a more social experience is worth diving into a new platform. If Facebook succeeds, there are plenty of potential benefits to owning a gaming destination. Facebook announced the launch and name change from "Facebook Games Arcade" today at Unity's game development platform conference. Unity 5.6 shipping next year will allow devs to export their games directly to Facebook Gameroom, as well as to the WebGL standard. Facebook's director of global games platform, Leo Olebe, touted how Facebook will feature new games in the Gameroom to give developers a leg up.

Comments

Dead out of the gate

[Anonymous Coward]

Gameroom?

This idea is sunk by name already

Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[sinij]

This is dead on arrival, as Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers. They might attract casual Facebook gamers, Farmville and the like, but they already have these.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[Shoten]

This is dead on arrival, as Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers. They might attract casual Facebook gamers, Farmville and the like, but they already have these.

Indeed. My first thought after reading this was, "There's no way I'm going to let those privacy-rapist cunts get their hooks into any part of my life...and Steam works just fine."

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[mjwx]

This is dead on arrival, as Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers. They might attract casual Facebook gamers, Farmville and the like, but they already have these.

I think that is the audience FB are trying to get. Those who want to bother other people with their Fruit Quest bollocks. Happy for that kind of nonsense and gamer to stay restricted to FB.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[tripleevenfall]

I'm sure that, as with any new FB feature, we can all expect a tidal wave of unwanted notifications and invitations soonly.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[tripleevenfall]

But they aren't looking for you, the Steam player, who would never use this. They're looking for the same rubes who spent real money on hay for their chocolate cows in Farmville. They want you paying facebook for it instead.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[Ranbot]

This is dead on arrival, as Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers. They might attract casual Facebook gamers, Farmville and the like, but they already have these.

Yup. Even with the casual gamers Facebook is missing that casual gamers don't want to be tied to another device... just ask Nintendo! Casual gamers won't take the extra effort to find a PC when they can just turn on a phone or tablet anywhere and immediately be playing Farmville [or alternative knock-off].

Also most gamers whether casual or hardcore don't necessarily want their gaming connected to their Facebook network of friends, associates, extended family, maybe even co-workers, so that connection would be a deterrent not benefit. I am a gamer with friends on Facebook and Steam, some of which overlap, but I prefer to keep those worlds separate.

And no exclusive titles or Oculus support that Facebook paid millions for?

Seems like a half-baked roll-out to sell to shareholders who don't understand the gamer market at all.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[Chris Mattern]

This is dead on arrival, as Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers. They might attract casual Facebook gamers, Farmville and the like, but they already have these.

They already have them, but they're not extracting money from them; Zynga and their ilk are. This is a plan to get a hold of the revenue streams that currently goes to Zynga et al.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[hodet]

Seperation of gaming life and facebook life hits home for me. I really like Steam, but its not something I wan't to be on my FB feed, nor would I want it on my LinkdIn feed either for obvious reasons.

Re: Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[stealth_finger]

The Wii U flopped only because it was marketed horribly, didn't have 3rd party support, and didn't have enough 1st party support. The console previous was one of the best selling consoles ever.

The wii might have been one of the best selling things ever but that was only because of the casual and "sports" stuff on it. There were very few proper games and even less that weren't put out by nintendo. They won't replicate that again and this new switch things looks like it will suffer the same fate as the wiiu. They'll keep on selling a fuckton of ds' though or whatever handheld they replace that with whenever they get around to it. Oh yeah, this facebook thing ain't going anywhere either.

Re: Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[stealth_finger]

All Facebook has to do is get a few big name devs onboard, or convince Epic that Unreal Engine should be able to target Gameroom, and they are sorted.

Not even nearly. You clearly aren't a gamer. To even stand a chance to capture the core gamer as you put it they would need to bag exclusivity deals to make people consider abandoning their chosen platform but that will more than likely make them abandon the game. There are shitloads of games, on a bunch of platforms, only a few of which are actually any good though, it needs to better than all the competition otherwise why would people bother, and it won't be.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Then why is this being framed as a Steam competitor?

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[CAHutch]

Agreed. No way in hell I'm installing any Facebook "platform" on my PC. I've no doubt however that this has something to do with FB owning Occulus. Occulus already has it's own game distribution platform though. Possibly they will merge and Occulus users will eventually be forced to use the Facebook platform. Good thing I went with the HTC.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[supremebob]

Honestly, it's not all that hard to get hardcore gamers to join a new platform. All you need to do is offer them a few older quality PC games for free (or a highly discounted price), and they'll install the client to download them.

Hey... it worked for EA with Origin, right? I didn't want to put that crap on my PC, but I did to get those games.

Re: Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[Ranbot]

Nintendos handhelds sell very well. The Wii U flopped...The console previous was one of the best selling consoles ever.

You really are a moron, you know that? Delete your account.

Wii and DS sales from 10 years ago have no bearing on the realities of today's game market. The Wii and DS hit a sweet spot in the growth of technology just before mobile phones took over, but those days are long over. Nintendo stock has fallen over the years because investors know this. Nintendo's CEO has publicly discussed the strong competition from mobile phone games. Nintendo even invested in mobile phone game maker Niantic and give them rights to the Pokemon franchise to make Pokemon Go! Nintendo doesn't give their franchises to others lightly, but they know their company isn't positioned to compete directly in the mobile game markets.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[Anonymous Coward]

to make waves in news...

Re: Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[tepples]

So what's the standard practice to control a character in an exploration-oriented platformer (think the Metroidvania genre, not a one-button continuous runner like Rayman Jungle Run) using only a touch screen? At least Nintendo's handhelds still have a Control Pad and physical buttons. Even the widely panned Turbo Touch 360 was better than the flat sheet of glass that is a smartphone's pointing device for three reasons: A. physical buttons are unchanged from an ordinary turbo controller, B. the touchpad is recessed so that the thumb can feel its edges, and C. the touchpad has ridges along the eight cardinal and intercardinal directions so that the thumb can feel the direction.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[kuzb]

This is exactly right. If facebook actually wants to compete, it needs to separate itself entirely from the new brand.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[sinij]

Seperation of gaming life and facebook life hits home for me.

Your secret affinity for Japanese Anime dating sims is safe for now.

Re: Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[Cederic]

Hmm, no. I started using Steam because games I bought wouldn't run without it.

HL2: Steam exclusive. That alone drew a large audience.

Me, it was Empire:Total War. Yep, no Steam until 2009, but then it started getting difficult to find games that didn't have "Requires Steam".

So yeah, Valve did use exclusives to help grow the platform. It's only the last three years or so that services like GOG have started to challenge the 'Must have Steam' PC gaming hegemony.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[hodet]

lol, minecraft is more my thing.

Re: Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[rogoshen1]

An onscreen controller, even with thumbstick works surprisingly well, such as with Final Fantasy VI on android -- works wonderfully. But it doesn't do haptic feedback.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[Solandri]

Talk about trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip. Zynga (ZNGA) has been trading below $3 for most of its public existence, compared to its $11 IPO in 2011.

Re: Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[Ranbot]

On screen controllers typically. The merits of different game platforms is irrelevant though, because the millions of casual gamers who play games like FarmVille, Candy Crush, Mobile Strike, etc. show with their actions and money spent that they vastly prefer mobile phone/tablets to other mediums. They do not want their gaming tethered to a another device and Facebook's Gameroom is not changing that fundamental fact. The "hardcore" gamers are already on Steam, Xbox, or Playstation networks, and Gameroom is not giving them incentive to switch, and the connection to one's Facebook friends is a disincentive for many.

Re: Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[tepples]

An onscreen controller, even with thumbstick works surprisingly well

It didn't work well for me. When I tried Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure for Android, I kept accidentally pressing outside the active area of the on-screen controller. With a Bluetooth keyboard, though, it was fine.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[b783719]

lol, minecraft is more my thing.

Your secret affinity for Minecraft dating sims is safe for now. FTFY.

Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers

[KingBenny]

dotslash agree ... and actually thats what we've been waiting for after origin and whats that other thing from ubisoft ? .... ANOTHER PLATFORM so theres MORE clutter pardon my crAPPS ... i dont think this will go down well with what i consider to be pc-gamers but it might sink in with zyngacrowd (does zynga still exist cos ... i have been living under a rock for a while
i sometimes wonder where these people do their research ... there is no beating the Gabe on this i'm afraid

Because

[Luthair]

PC Gamers have had such a glowing response to EA's Origin and Ubisoft's UPlay.

Re:Because

[tnok85]

And we trust Facebook even more than Origin and UPlay! Only thing I'm worried about - does Facebook have enough clout to get real 'exclusives'? The only reason Origin has traction is because of exclusives (Mass Effect, Battlefield games, etc) and UPlay used to force install with games bought on Steam (I think I had to have it installed to play Driver). EA/Origin also produce the games themselves, so they have a lot more clout in restricting them to certain delivery platforms.

Re:Because

[mjwx]

PC Gamers have had such a glowing response to EA's Origin and Ubisoft's UPlay.

This. I've pretty much stopped buying EA and Ubisoft games because I cant get them without Origin or Uplay.

To beat Steam, you have to be better than Steam. If you exclude steam and try to force people onto your own crappy platform you'll just drive more people to piracy.

I usually try GOG first, especially for Indie games, but Steam is a useful, non-intrusive platform that hasn't screwed up on me in years... Unlike Origin that decided to delete my games and force me to re-download them (this is why I uninstalled it and never went back).

Re:Because

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, GOG is the only platform that currently has a chance of competing with steam and that's because in some ways, it's significantly better than steam. But even they don't try to push people to their platform with exclusives. Though CD Projekt Red (the owners of GOG) made the Witcher 3, the game was available on many different distribution channels, not just GOG. And even then, GOG succeeds because what it does better, but it doesn't dominate because steam still does a lot of other things better.

Re:Because

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not the only one. My friends usually get a little upset when I wont buy games for Uplay.

I have been boycotting every game from UbiSoft that contains DRM since StarForce. I only buy UbiSoft games from GOG.

And fuck no to any more companies that force me to create an account just to play single player or LAN.

Sign me up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what the world needs.

Another platform where you pay and pay and pay, and have zero rights post-purchase as a consumer. They don't like you? Your account goes poof, and everything in it. Business not doing so well? Servers shut down. What can you do if any of this happens? Absolutely nothing, because the EULA inevitably says "Service not guaranteed" and/or "We can disable your account for absolutely no reason at all".

Hello.

[dohzer]

Hello ads.

Wow I can't wait... /s

[wardrich86]

Looking forward to seeing this platform. I assume it will be full of shit like Farmville, Candy Crush, etc. and have new and inventive ways to annoy the piss out of everybody with requests and notifications.

That's exactly what I want.

[Oswald McWeany]

That's exactly what I want. My real name associated with the games I play, and have ads tailored to me based upon any games I play.

I only have steam because I have to. I refuse to install anything that requires Origin or UPlay- I sure as fudge won't install Facegames! I don't care if they get exclusive games, I've never been the sort to fall for peer pressure. "Oh you have to play this game that's only on Origin"- no I really don't. There are plenty of games on Steam. More games than I'll ever get around to playing. Exclusives are for idiots.

Re:That's exactly what I want.

[Oswald McWeany]

quit whining and go to Good Old Games gog.com FFS

I like GOG, but their content is rather limited. They're improving the last few years though, selling more than just old crap now.

Confusing branding for gamers

[HalAtWork]

Gamers might associate the name with Microsoft's lackluster Game Room platform for emulated games on the Xbox 360 and Windows PC/phone. They over-pro!mised and under-delivered, being slow to add new games as well as charging fees to import supported games users already purchased.

Re:Confusing branding for gamers

[boarder8925]

From the Wikipedia article the parent linked:

Earlier in 2015, game packs and other DLC became unavailable for Xbox 360.[4] Currently as of November 2015, it is not possible to download or re-download the content[5] and there have been reports of users not being able to access the games even when they had purchased them.

Classic Microsoft -- games that can be PlayedForSure!

Re:Confusing branding for gamers

[Bing Tsher E]

Solitaire isn't even a free Windows game any longer.

125m users?

[110010001000]

Steam has 125 million active users? That doesn't seem possible. Pretty amazing if true though!

Re:125m users?

[Coisiche]

Depends on how loose your definition of "active" is. The wikipedia page says this of Steam, "The service has over 125 million registered accounts. Steam has had as many as 12.5 million concurrent users as of November 2015."

Re:125m users?

[Bing Tsher E]

I am not totally repulsed by the Steam DRM mechanism. When they try to coerce it into becoming a social network I back away, though.

It is ALWAYS a disappointment, however, when I purchase a boxed physical PC game and discover shortly after opening it and trying to install it that it's another 'Steam' game. It isn't always very well labeled as such on the packaging. Sometimes it's very deep in the fine print.

Re:125m users?

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Yeah, stay the hell away from the message boards and the "community hubs" in general. Use the friends list for actual friends that you like to play with online, sell all cards you get from playing games, 50 cents off a game here and there adds up, and only costs you a few clicks.

Dear Facebook

[fishscene]

No. The only thing you do well is sell as much of me as you can to the highest bidder. The less you know about me and everyone else, the better off humanity is. Sincerely, An American with common sense.

Re: Dear Facebook

[fishscene]

Maybe I should form a special interest group and start lobbying for special rights. #CommonSenseMatters after all. :) (I can poke fun at our own idiocy)

It will be oculus users only option

[Anonymous Coward]

You can be sure this is to capture more oculus exclusives and force people to use this platform to play them.

Re:Not really competition.

[MindStalker]

Yep, this is about web games only. That said, WebGL is becoming a powerful replacement, its certainly better than Flash. With Unity now providing an export to WebGL option. Its nice in a way to see WebGL take off. Sure this isn't the future of PC gaming, but it certainly can be a great opportunity for hobbyist and small publishers. It would be smart of Steam to support WebGL games to some degree.

Only Unity supported

[edxwelch]

According to the FAQ, native games have to use Unity - no other engine is supported. Also there is a 200MB limit to the size of the game.

Re:Only Unity supported

[Bing Tsher E]

Also there is a 200MB limit to the size of the game.

The original Doom game installer fits on a single floppy diskette.

Size matters, but not nearly as much as some people think.

Re:Only Unity supported

[edxwelch]

so.... the original Doom game would be ok for size, but it still wouldn't pass the "Unity only" restriction.

Re:Only Unity supported

[Cederic]

Rebuild it in Unity and it might not fit the size restriction.

That code was _tight_.

So... it's for web games only....

[mark-t]

... but works only on Windows PCs

Can somebody please explain to me the logic here?

Steam, only with creepy privacy invasion?

[Maritz]

Where do I sign up?

Re:Steam, only with creepy privacy invasion?

[unixisc]

You mean, as opposed to Steam logging how many hours you play each game? Like so far, I have 12 hours of the new Civilization VI game - which incidentally sucks: you can't name yourself, your civilization, your cities, and worst of all - if your city starts building something, you can't change it until it's complete

Re:Steam, only with creepy privacy invasion?

[Maritz]

Steam logs of time played are to be taken with a gigantic pinch of salt. Timer can keep running even though game isn't. Alt-tab out and forget about the game for a day and boom, an extra 24 hours 'time played'.

Steam thinks I've played Torchlight 2 for fifty hours. It's closer to one hour.

I believe you can reset that counter if you want, in any case.

Re:Steam, only with creepy privacy invasion?

[unixisc]

This is right. There are times when, in the midst of a game, I've gone out w/o exiting the game, and returned hours later to resume. So it does add those hours to my play time. However, in the above case, I did really play for 12 hours this new game of theirs. That said, I'd love to know how and where to reset that.

Re:Steam, only with creepy privacy invasion?

[Cederic]

I quite like that log.

If nothing else, it tells me that I may as well stop fretting about the price and just buy FM17: its predecessors are some of my most played games, I'll get far better value for money than almost anything else I can buy for more than a quid.

Re:Steam, only with creepy privacy invasion?

[Chelmet]

worst of all - if your city starts building something, you can't change it until it's complete

Erm, you definitely can change what a city is currently building. I'm thinking about how to do it, and I'm coming up blank on how you would find it confusing, there are several intuitive ways to do it, two of which are:

1) Click City, click 'Contrruction', click what you want to build.
2) On the City's bar (over the city itself, not the UI overlay), click the cogwheel at the right hand side; this will bring up the construction menu.

Just what I needed (not!)

[King_TJ]

Why does it seem like Facebook is working like mad, lately, to re-invent wheels and give people stuff they don't need?

In the last couple weeks or so, I heard about them offering a commercial version of Facebook to act like your internal Intranet, and an IM client for corporate use (because Slack isn't any good!?), and now this.

Like someone else already said, it's already extremely annoying if you use Windows for gaming that you're usually stuck loading at least 3 major clients/managers to play a collection of popular games. You've got Steam, but then you've got the Ubisoft launcher AND the EA launcher. And probably a fourth one for Blizzard's stuff, too.

I'd like to see it all consolidated somehow .... like Steam working a deal so after you buy an item via one of those competitor's game managers/laumchers, they support migrating it in so you can just use Steam to launch it after that. I certainly DON'T want yet another one, from Facebook of all people!

Re:Just what I needed (not!)

[Ranbot]

That's literally how it was. Everything just worked through Steam. And then Ubi and EA decided they needed to have their own ignorant-ass Uplay and Origin bullshit.

I agree and I like Steam. However, Steam is just a middle-man service that makes ungodly amounts of money for Valve, with relatively little effort or risk on their part compared to making actual games. You have to expect that others in the industry would try to get a piece of that market, especially when the Steam's user base was forcing them to sell on Steam and fork over transactions fees to their competitor.

Convenience...

[Stormy Dragon]

So now when that 13 year old gets pissed you beat him, it will be extra easy for him to start harassing you outside the game because he has your real name and the names of your family, friends, and co-workers!

In other news, Valve is shut down today...

[Trailer Trash]

In other news, Valve is shut down today. It seems all the employees are helplessly rolling around on the floor laughing.

Re:Windows?

[pecosdave]

This is not a whoosh moment.

I firmly believe all video games from a couple of years ago forward (not meant for consoles) should be developed for Linux first. This makes the Mac port fairly easy and gets the game onto the Steambox.

Then they can worry about a Windows port.

Seems to work well for the games made with this mindset, and has for a couple of decades, especially with Unreal, Quake, Doom, etc... Engine games. In fact if you make a game with one of those engines and it isn't ported to multiple platforms it just makes the developer an asshole.

Re:Dear Facebook (they know)

[gosand]

I don't have a FB account.

However, I have used WhatsApp for a few years now. As I understand it, it is used a lot in other countries too. I have used Instagram for a couple of years now as well. Now that FB owns them, I guess they know a lot more about me than I want. While I don't use my real name on either... i am sure the dots can be connected.

If you don't use either of those, it is probably a matter of time before they acquire something that you do use.

And nobody should download it.

[iCEBaLM]

Seriously. Don't download it. There's no benefit to you, only facebook.

How about no

[mangamaster03]

They are wasting their time. If I'm gonna insult someone's mother, her firstborn, and their entire household, I'm sure as hell not gonna do it with my real name showing up from facebook.

Oculus exclusives

[tepples]

Facebook owns Oculus. Is that not enough clout to get exclusives?

I can still hear the theme from Star Force

[tepples]

I have been boycotting every game from UbiSoft that contains DRM since StarForce.

In other words, since 1984. This means you missed Buck Bumble, which has the same DRM that all N64 games have.

Least important

[OrangeTide]

So FB has cloned the least important feature of Steam?

good luck with that

[Charcharodon]

and I just officially announced I will never, nor will any of the children in my household ever be using said service.

Re:Windows?

[Kiwikwi]

Sorry, no.

As much as I like platform diversity, and as much as I primarily game on non-Windows OS'es, it simple does not make financial sense to develop for Linux first.

The only fiscally responsible thing is to develop primarily for the platform where the most paying customers are... and for desktop games, that's Windows. Because even with engines like Unreal and Unity simplifying cross-platform development, it's never free to support additional platforms. You need developers with platform experience, you need testers on the platform. For Linux, you have to worry about distribution fragmentation, and for OS X, about Apple breaking backwards compatibility. And while I laud companies that launch on Windows, OS X and Linux simultaneously, that's definitely a gamble. If your game tanks on Windows, the OS X and Linux sales are likely also gonna tank, and will not cover the costs of supporting those additional platforms. (Though obviously, this risk has to be weighed against the risks of staggered platform releases...)

Disclosure: I am a Unity employee (but not working in an area related to the Facebook announcement).