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Facebook Teams Up With Unity To Create a Gaming Platform To Rival Steam (betanews.com) 103

Posted by msmash 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.
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Facebook Teams Up With Unity To Create a Gaming Platform To Rival Steam More

Facebook Teams Up With Unity To Create a Gaming Platform To Rival Steam

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  • Finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @11:03AM (#52725833)

    Farmville on every platform!

  • Don't want (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Don't want.

    -Glorious PC Master Race

  • Oh like last time? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Atrox666 ( 957601 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @11:05AM (#52725853)

    Like when Facebook had games and eventually took over all the ad space the developers had to finance their games?
    Like when they suddenly banned all their developers from billing their own customers?
    Like when they were giving away facebook credits and making developers pick up the tab?

    For some reason I think I'll give this a big ol' pass.
    You'd have to be pretty dumb at this point to think Facebook wouldn't steal all the profit.

  • Not gonna happen (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Any venture that is based on trust will ultimately fail when facebook is involved. They squandered the trust of users a very long time go.

  • Hmm, Oculus store? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18, 2016 @11:07AM (#52725869)

    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.

  • Lost Cause (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It's all well and good that they want to try, but they've got several factors working against them:

    1. Facebook is already synonymous with casual Bejeweled clones and management timesinks
    2. Unity is known mostly as a cheap engine for middling-to-low tier casual games and a few indies
    3. They simply don't have the library

    Number 3 is what will hurt them the most. As it stands, Steam's got a massive library of titles including the latest & greatest as well as loads of classic games. Unless Facebook plans to

    • The library issue will be interesting to see. As the existence of Origin and U-play demonstrate, there is certainly a desire for Steam competitors(both from those who dream of also extracting transaction costs; and from those who want to avoid their entire business existing at the power and mere pleasure of Valve); but only the most deluded can imagine that Facebook has any interest in being the lesser partner in an arrangement on their precious social network.

      Being not-Valve will likely be somewhat attr

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kkloe ( 2751395 )
      Aint Unity nearly de facto standard for developing games for mobile phones?, I know some people in mobile game development business and all of the different companies use unity, so they could bring those games into pc with their launcher and have a very big catalog from the start

  • Oops. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fishscene ( 3662081 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @11:11AM (#52725915)
    Unity seemed alright until this. The very last thing I want in the digital world is Facebook anything. Just replace "Facebook" with "spyware/adware" and you have a much clearer picture of what it actually is.

    • Re:Oops. (Score:5, Informative)

      by guises ( 2423402 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @04:51PM (#52728803)
      Ugh, I'm blowing mods to post this but it has to be known more broadly: Unity is already spyware and has been for a while. Analytics is integrated into the editor, and while it used to be opt-out ever since Unity 5.0 it's been impossible for free users to disable. (Pro users still? have that option) Additionally, any games that you make with Unity also spy on your customers, even if you don't include Unity analytics or Unity ads. Naturally, if you do include those things your games will collect even more information, and Unity will graciously share some of that information with you, but it's not possible to make a spyware-free game with Unity.

      In that respect, this seems like a savvy pairing between companies.

  • godmadn (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    There goes Unity. It has been fun while it lasted.

  • I for one (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Look forward to getting interrupted gaming by an advert :)

  • Pass (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Hahahahah

    Good luck with that. If there's one thing Facebook does not comprehend it's the hardcore gaming market. Steam and social media are not the same thing. Gamers aren't into social media. Gamers don't desire Farmville, they don't want microtransactions every 5 seconds, and they damn sure don't want your shitty ads inserted into their experience or their mom interrupting their session with a new wall update.

    Trying to compete with actual gamers (Steam) in their own market is going to end up an embarrassi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Altrag ( 195300 )

      You need to update your definition of "gamer." Casual games like Farmville, Angry Birds, Candy Crush and so on are huge and make up a rather significant portion of the overall games market these days. You're free to not like those type of games (and I'm with you there) but denying the size and impact of the casual market is something that stopped being reasonable about 3-4 years ago.

      Nobody wants ads in their games though.. or anywhere else for that matter, regardless of how hardcore they are. But at the

  • Facebook, I don't get it. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why do people willingly sign up to a multilevel marketing company? It's absurd.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Altrag ( 195300 )

      Because the value of privacy isn't really visible while the value of social interactions is immediate and obvious (well, at least for a large majority of people.)

      FB has made a name for themselves by being regularly and overtly evil about things, but its not like their competitors are much better. Money has to come from somewhere and since nobody's willing to pay with cash for much of anything on the internet, they pay with personal data instead. Sure some are worse than others but at the end of the day, i

  • I barely use facebook as it is and am vehemently opposed to the data scraping and such it does for everything that is put on their servers. I'll be damned if I'm going to let them datamine my gaming habits too. At least with Steam it seems they categorize and time, "You like FPS's? RPGs? you might like these..." and reviews note time played. Beyond that, they don't care.

    I can only imagine what sort of crap Facebook will add in the name of "features" for this sort of thing.

  • Oculus Studios (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spire3661 ( 1038968 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @11:25AM (#52726043) Journal
    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.
    • Boy, I can't wait for the next AAA title that requires me to log in to Facebook and that won't give me more playing time unless I post begging for others to start play. "Extraordinary moves in gaming", yes I sadly believe this. Our grandchildren are going to be baffled by games that you could just play on a single computer by yourself without social media intruding. "But Grandpa, how did you play games back then without becoming an unpaid marketing agent for the company that made the game? That's just w

    • 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.

      Meh, It's Facebook and no-one trusts them. Why would I care?

  • Unity (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Dammit. I like Unity a *lot* and it is very handy to have around for fun and experiments. FBook snapping it up sucks, I don't want their hooks in my hobbies.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Altrag ( 195300 )

      It appears that this is (so far) a partnership rather than a takeover, so it will likely just be Unity adding hooks to FB's API and little else on their end. Perhaps adding FB's platform language (whatever they use) as an alternative to the C# and whatnot they currently support for scripting.

      The FB platform side will likely require a much larger overhaul as they'll need to allow Unity's API functionality without breaking whatever they've currently got setup.

      For now, this probably won't adversely affect Uni

  • It's bad enough that I have to deal with Origin (Score:4)

    by Jeff Flanagan ( 2981883 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @12:02PM (#52726389)
    There's value in having all your games on a single distribution platform, and I'm already annoyed by having to put up with Origin and UPlay. Adding another crappy little distribution platform is not going to help anyone but maybe Facebook.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by clubby ( 1144121 )
      I've boycotted Origin (and, therefore, all EA games) since its inception five years ago. I've been periodically tempted by Battlefield games, but mostly, I just don't feel like I've missed out on anything. I will feel the same way about whatever FB/Unity come up with.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sinij ( 911942 )
        The same here. While Origin was annoying, having to start BF from browser is what did it for me. What the bleeping bleep in the bleeps? Why?
        • I don't mind the browser thing; I play BF4 exclusively in multiplayer mode, and I prefer a good browser based game server finder over a shitty one built into the game (especially the ones that are kind of designed for consoles). Otherwise I'm no fan of EA, BF4 is my only game in Origin.
      • I've boycotted Origin, UPlay and pretty much anything published by Ubisoft. I almost faltered after reading (in the Steam Forums) that "Dawn of Discovery" (aka Anno 1404) no longer contained TAGÈS DRM... except if Ubisoft can't even be bothered to maintain their store pages on Steam Dawn of Discovery [steampowered.com]

        Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: TAGES

        3 machine activation limit

        Warning: This title uses 3rd party DRM (Tages)

        Which still to this day reminds you what a horrible horrible company Ubisoft has been. No. No. No. No. No. A polished turd is

      • Heh. Your UID is 140 higher than mine.

    • There's value in having all your games on a single distribution platform

      There is no value in the concept of a "distribution platforms" in the first place.

      This is like everything sold at Walmart being exclusive to Walmart and requiring special Walmart branded electrical outlets to use the Toaster you just purchased.

      and I'm already annoyed by having to put up with Origin and UPlay. Adding another crappy little distribution platform is not going to help anyone but maybe Facebook.

      I think this is good. The more fragmentation the more people will get pissed off and insist thru their wallet enough is enough with the whole "distribution platform" BS... Store exclusivity and DRM locked to where you got shit is unacceptable to me no matter who is

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Altrag ( 195300 )

        You do realize that "distribution platform" and "DRM" are not the same thing right? Someone like GoG could in theory design and build a front-end client for their games just like Steam has, and not be required to add any more DRM than they already have.

        The fact that Steam is the only distribution platform that anyone really recognizes and they happen to use DRM is a fluke of history, not a fundamental necessity.

        Personally I like having my entire library in one place with a consistent install/launch/uninsta

  • facebook has done a good job of destroying user trust, so i don't think people are looking to become more entwined with them than they already are. it's one thing to betray users when you have a leading platform and people are being to driven to rely on you but it's quite another to be known as betraying users when you are trying to build a new platform.

  • There have actually been a lot of competitors in this space. EA dropped Steam in favour of Origin, and of course MS is pushing the app store. So far though, Steam has been the top dog, likely in part because they offer the best service (note I won't say perfect service, as they still have issues, but still a lot better than the competition). Steam has also made progress is offering more features, such as the ability to play games from a non-logged-in account on an authorised PC (with a different account log

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by clubby ( 1144121 )
      Origin was never about serving the customer better, it was always about EA making more money per sale and having more control. Ditto for the MS app store. Probably, ditto for FB/Unity. There's no way that anyone looks at the gaming market and says, "wow, Steam is failing to meet its customers' needs, so I'll get right on that and create something better!" They're looking at the gaming market and saying, "wow, I wish all that money was going into my pockets." There's nothing wrong with making a profit,

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by phorm ( 591458 )

        Yup, pretty much. I could see this becoming a nightmare of integration as well. Facebook login for the service will be a given, but I just cleaned up me feed of all the "game" notifications I was getting from the crappy web-games. Now I'll probably now to deal with lame achievement notifications etc because I'm sure FB will start incorporating those into their feeds.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nnull ( 1148259 )
        It's definitely hitting Steam a lot when a lot of triple A titles are no longer selling on Steam. Just look at what's selling now on the front page of Steam. 50% of the titles there is pure crap. Facebook has the infrastructure to distribute their own games and making a distribution content system is just a drop in the bucket for them.

        Basically the whole gaming industry is turning into this fractured system where I have to now have multiple content distribution software to play these games and now game

  • I will stop playing games... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...before I will ever use any Facebook service. Ever.

  • Nope (Score:3)

    by maharvey ( 785540 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @12:56PM (#52726953)

    Sure bring on the competition, it will be a good for Steam. I'd prefer a third party but we all know by now that capitalism devolves to a dual monopoly. Facebook will be the Microsoft of the online gaming world, and Steam will be the Apple.

    But, I need to log into Facebook to play a game? They already want me to log in to post comments on news articles, to participate in the local railroad club or RPG community, or increasingly to gain access to assorted websites. They want Facebook to be the "universal login to the internet." I can swallow logging into Steam, because they don't have their slimy tentacles connected to everything else.

    So nope, I won't play. Gaming is not that important to me, and I certainly don't need TWO Steams eating my hard disk and chugging CPU cycles.

    Google is intrusive enough but somehow they don't feel as skanky as Facebook. Google is an over-eager octopus, but Facebook crosses the line into hentai. In theory they are the same thing and I should be equally concerned with both, but they sure don't feel the same. Maybe it's Zuckerberg's smarmy grin.

    • Sure bring on the competition, it will be a good for Steam. I'd prefer a third party but we all know by now that capitalism devolves to a dual monopoly.

      You mean duopoly.

      Facebook will be the Microsoft of the online gaming world, and Steam will be the Apple.

      Facebook will be the Microsoft of mobile devices, and Steam will be Android.

  • When you consider that facebook has taken steps to force more ads on their users despite knowing that users don't want them and will actively go out of their way to reduce them, I wouldn't trust them.

    Facebook also changes users settings very often. Just one small example, I have to reset my feed back to newest first on average 3 times a day, and that's not the only setting they screw with, though the others are either less frequently, or I don't notice it as often. Because of that, I wouldn't trust them.

    The

  • In a perfect world, game developers would make the best games they could and sell directly to the player via open source software and hardware platforms. No Xbox/Sony gatekeeping, no Steam/Origin/FB middleman. Just the developers and the players.

    One can dream...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Altrag ( 195300 )

      I for one look forward to the day when I have to recompile every game I purchase, and spend 3 weeks trying to track down library incompatibilities on half of them.

      Oh wait, no I don't. And I'm one of the relatively small percentage of the population who actually could do all of that if I cared enough to bother.

  • As long as FB maintains their real name policy, FB integration is a deal breaker for pretty much anything with me.

  • Now Valve will be punished for SteamOS and Vulkan.

    Microsoft doing what it does best: leveraging monopoly influence.

  • Soandso has asked you for more gems in Team Fortress Facebook Edition!

    nope nope nope nopity nope

  • I can't wait to hear the rant Tim Sweeney goes on when he hears this. The only gaming store he hasn't insinuated is evil is Steam, and that's probably because he knows that's a loosing battle. I wonder how much money Epic has spent to develop their Epic Games Launcher.

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