Facebook Gameroom

The PC gaming market is more lively than ever, mainly thanks to the fact that everyone has the possibility to design and publish a game nowadays. While two decades ago an entire team of professional coders and artists was needed to take on such a project, modern tools like Unity and Game Maker are simple enough for complete beginners to express themselves.

Facebook Gameroom is a platform designed by the social media giant Facebook with the simple purpose of providing gamers with a place to enjoy their casual games and keep them organized in a neat library. Although it competes with Steam in certain areas, the focus of this platform is clearly different, so you probably won’t have to choose one or the other.

Naturally, the application allows you to enjoy every game that’s currently on Facebook, regardless of whether it’s a web-based Flash title or an actual PC game. You can also receive game notifications inside the app and search for similar titles by browsing the categories. Some of the games have ads inside, on the other hand, so don’t hope for a cleaner experience than before just because you are playing them on your PC.

It goes without saying that Facebook’s greatest advantage is the huge potential player base, given the fact that there are over one billion people using it. Hence, it’s a great prospect for developers seeking exposure, especially since you can include ads and make extra revenue. On the other hand, there are thousands of games to choose from, so it’s a lot harder to catch the public’s attention.

While triple-A studios might not be able to take advantage of this platform right off the bat, one can certainly see Facebook’s unlimited funds in action, in the sense that it can afford to persuade a few developers to release their games on Facebook Gameroom. However, the app should remain focused on casual audiences, because it benefits a lot from microtransactions and ad revenue.

In the end, Facebook Gameroom is probably not going to threaten Steam or GOG, but it can get significantly bigger than these by simply targeting the right audience. Thus, it’s definitely a step in the right direction for Facebook, even if it’s a bit late to the party at this point.