Cloud Gaming, Meet Facebook Gaming

New Games in a Fresh Destination for Play on Facebook

Today we’re announcing that we’ve launched several cloud-streamed games in the Facebook app and on browser — playable instantly, with no downloads required. We recently had 200,000 people playing our cloud-streamed games per week in limited regions, so while it’s not exactly a secret, I’m excited to lay out what we’re building. 

But first, I want to clarify what we’re not doing: we’re not spinning off a separate cloud gaming service. All cloud-streamed games are playable in the same way you play games now on Facebook — whether it’s in our Gaming tab or from News Feed. No special hardware or controllers needed – your hands are the controllers since we’re launching with native mobile games. And you can play these games with a mouse and keyboard on desktop. More than 380 million people play games each month on Facebook, and people will play cloud-streamed games right alongside those playing instant games in HTML5. And if we do our jobs right, you won’t notice how the games are delivered.

Here are some highlights:

• Free-to-Play Cloud Games Launching in Beta on Android and Web at fb.gg/play (we’re not launching on iOS … for now): Our first set of games available this week include Asphalt 9: Legends by Gameloft; Mobile Legends: Adventure by Moonton; PGA TOUR Golf Shootout by Concrete Software, Inc.; Solitaire: Arthur’s Tale by Qublix Games; and WWE SuperCard by 2K Games. In the coming weeks we’ll add Dirt Bike Unchained by Red Bull, and we’ll continue to test new experiences and expand the games library.
• Player Names and Cross-Play: For the first time on Facebook, we’re introducing player names and gaming-themed avatars for players to represent themselves in game instead of using their full name and profile picture. And, all developers integrating Facebook Login for Gaming can enable cross-play between the downloaded version of their game and the cloud version on Facebook.
• Cloud Playable Ads Launching on Android and iOS in the US: Building on our HTML5 playable ads format, we’re launching cloud playable ads. With this new format, we can now support interactive demos from a game’s native code, blurring the line between games and ads.
• A Redesigned Destination for Play on Facebook: Our newly designed Gaming tab includes updated discovery and re-engagement features to help players find new games to try and get back into the ones they’ve played. 

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Get all the details and learn more about what we’re building in the Facebook Gaming blog post.