Facebook Aggressively Pushes Gaming Agenda With Messenger Games

Last month, Facebook launched “Gameroom,” which is the social media equivalent of Valve’s Steam platform. It was the start of the social network’s push into gaming territory, where it once held a significant chunk thanks to titles like Farmville and Candy Crush Saga. Now, Facebook is also adding gaming features to its Messenger app, where users can play while also chatting with friends.

Some of the games available to play include classics like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and the popular Words With Friends. The feature itself is called Instant Games, Tech Crunch reports, and friends can compete for high scores like gamers used to do through those bulky arcade machines.

The games are based on HTML5, so they pop up rather easily and quickly, allowing gamers to play instantly. There’s no need to download anything either, which makes playing really simple. It should be noted that an internet connection is needed to play the games since it is on Facebook Messenger.

Aside from being yet another attempt by the social media giant at carving a huge slice of the gaming industry pie for itself, Instant Games is also a way to encourage users to spend as much time on Messenger as possible. With Facebook making plans to monetize the chat app through creative ways to place ads, as well as the dozens of chatbots from corporations throwing their lot into messaging services, more users spending more time on Messenger is good for business.

The decision to add more games on Messenger was made due to the high engagement by users with other titles already added to the app, Business Insider reports. According to Leo Olebe, the director of games partnership at Facebook, the previous basketball and soccer titles were a huge hit.

"People have put games inside of messaging platforms before," Olebe told the publication. "Facebook has not. And it’s really exciting for us to do it in a way that can engage people on the Messenger platform."