Social media company Facebook has announced that it is entering the cloud gaming arena with Facebook Gaming. And let’s just say that it is a very interesting business model before we get into the details.
Let’s start with what Facebook Gaming is not. And it’s not an alternative to Microsoft’s xCloud, Google Stadia or Amazon Luna. What this means is that you won’t be streaming PC or console games from the internet to your mobile phone.
Instead, you’ll be streaming other mobile games like Asphalt 9: Legends and Mobile Legends: Adventure to your mobile phone. This is, of course, in addition to the multitude of games that you can already play on the social media.
For what it’s worth, Facebook says it’s not starting another separate service. Instead, you’ll be making use of Facebook Gaming the way you are already with the other games available on the social media site. And it will even support crossplay between this version and the regular downloaded versions of the supported games. For these you can set your own in-game names rather than use your actual name.
Facebook Gaming, as a whole, is a pretty confusing addition to the social media’s many projects. One major reason is that it’s sharing the name with the company’s own Twitch competitor streaming service.
Then there’s the service letting you stream mobile games, when you can just download them to your phone. Probably the argument is so that you can carry your progress over when you’re on PC. But if that’s the case, why are you not just playing a PC game?
At any rate, mobile game streaming side of Facebook Gaming is rolling out in the US to start. No word on when it will be available elsewhere just yet.
(Source: Facebook [1], [2])
