Facebook Officially Announces Gameroom, Its PC Steam Competitor (techcrunch.com) 116
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.
Dead out of the gate (Score:1)
Gameroom?
This idea is sunk by name already
Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
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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.
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Then why is this being framed as a Steam competitor?
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to make waves in news...
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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.
It will be oculus users only option (Score:3, Insightful)
You can be sure this is to capture more oculus exclusives and force people to use this platform to play them.
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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
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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.
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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 does
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Seperation of gaming life and facebook life hits home for me.
Your secret affinity for Japanese Anime dating sims is safe for now.
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lol, minecraft is more my thing.
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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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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i sometimes wonder where these people do their research
Because (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oculus exclusives (Score:2)
Facebook owns Oculus. Is that not enough clout to get exclusives?
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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 u
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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.
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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.
I can still hear the theme from Star Force (Score:2)
I have been boycotting every game from UbiSoft that contains DRM since StarForce.
In other words, since 1984 [wikipedia.org]. This means you missed Buck Bumble [wikipedia.org], which has the same DRM that all N64 games have.
Sign me up! (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:2)
Hello ads.
Wow I can't wait... /s (Score:2)
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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.
That's exactly what I want. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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 (Score:2)
Gamers might associate the name with Microsoft's lackluster Game Room [wikipedia.org] 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.
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Classic Microsoft -- games that can be PlayedForSure!
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Solitaire isn't even a free Windows game any longer.
125m users? (Score:2)
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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."
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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.
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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 (Score:3)
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Re:Dear Facebook (they know) (Score:2)
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.
Windows? (Score:1)
Excluded all of my computers already.
Besides, I've had to fix one too many Facebook games invoked issues on other peoples systems. I've blocked my family members from being able to send me game invites.
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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 platfo
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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, y
Only Unity supported (Score:1)
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.
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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.
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so.... the original Doom game would be ok for size, but it still wouldn't pass the "Unity only" restriction.
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Rebuild it in Unity and it might not fit the size restriction.
That code was _tight_.
So... it's for web games only.... (Score:2)
Can somebody please explain to me the logic here?
Steam, only with creepy privacy invasion? (Score:2)
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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.
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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.
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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!) (Score:2)
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
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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... (Score:2)
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... (Score:2)
In other news, Valve is shut down today. It seems all the employees are helplessly rolling around on the floor laughing.
And nobody should download it. (Score:2)
Seriously. Don't download it. There's no benefit to you, only facebook.
How about no (Score:1)
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.
Least important (Score:2)
So FB has cloned the least important feature of Steam?
good luck with that (Score:2)