Facebook Clashes With Steam, Opens Digital Video Game Store Called ‘Gameroom’

Facebook has been on the warpath to claim every available real estate over the last few years and this time, it has placed its stake on the digital video game retail and hosting market. By establishing what it calls “Gameroom,” the social media site is essentially declaring open competition with the popular PC platform, “Steam.” Facebook may be facing dark clouds in the horizon, however, as it is basically messing with a formula involving casual players.

“Gameroom” basically works like Steam or GoG, where the games are placed in a single platform and which can be accessed via Window.exe client, Tom’s Hardware reports. It’s also a more centralized version of Facebook’s Games tab, where all of its online games were originally hosted.

Gamers can downloaded the client and sign in to see all of the games that they have access to, which are pretty much all of the games that Facebook offers since virtually none of them require money. The platform was also developed with the cooperation of Unity, which develops game engines that power a significant number of titles in the market.

With that said, many are already thinking that the social media site might be jumping the gun on this particular segment. Right now, Facebook has over 1.6 billion users, which gives it a pretty big pool of potential customers to choose from. However, not all of them are gamers.

Of the several hundred million players of titles like Candy Crush Saga that Facebook still has, a majority of them are casual players. They are basically getting games that only takes one click to play. By giving them a client where they have to sign in, set up, and basically jump several more hoops through to play, the social network is basically risking that casual crowd.

Then again, it could be a gateway to allowing VR online multiplayer for even casual users. VR poker with friends is one example, PC World notes, where players from around the world can play virtual cards in the same room.