Facebook is making the most of its partnership with Unity by releasing the new Gameroom client. This is essentially a Windows based platform for hosting Facebook games; something comparable to Valve’s Steam client.
Gameroom will host both games designed for Facebook’s webclient and those built specifically for the platform. That being said, the size restrictions for Gameroom may affect the titles that appear on it. Facebook is telling developers to keep their games below 500MB in size; and that it should be able to load within 10 seconds.
In other words, it looks like Gameroom will end up hosting a lot of the games that one finds on Facebook. It’s difficult to tell whether it will catch on, considering that this represents yet another game client. However, it could be aimed more casual gamers who are not juggling Steam, Battle.net, Origin, GoG Galaxy, and the like.
It doesn’t look like Gameroom is ready for release just yet, and there are still a few features that haven’t been implemented. In-app purchases still require the Facebook SDK for implementation, and the UI is still rather basic.
Gameroom is currently only available for download on Windows. Facebook has no plans for it to appear on Linux or Mac OS; although it does say that it will consider the move if there is any demand for it.
[Source: Facebook Developer Blog]
