Facebook wasn’t content to only integrate live streaming for games with their Blizzard (and more studios to come) partnership. Nope, they’ve now gone one step further and integrated games into, uh, messenger. That’s right, I said Facebook Messenger.
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Since it’s integrated with Messenger, the only way to play these games is with your friends. No single player campaign for you, it’s all co-op or competitive all the time. The feature, available now for newer Android and iOS systems, launched with 17 games. These games include Pac-Man, Galaga (yes, that Galaga from Avengers), Arkanoid, Space Invaders, World with Friends: Frenzy, 2020 Connect, and others. You can see the entire list at the bottom of this page.
Games on Messenger will feature score-based leaderboards, in-context chat, and group thread conversations that will allow you to compete against anyone on Messenger. However, have you continued to resist the scourge that is FB Messenger? Then you can still join in on the game goodness by playing in your FB News Feed. But wait! There’s more! There is a dedicated Instant Games bookmark where people an view and instantly replay all their favorite titles. If you’re worried about privacy, and who wouldn’t be since this if Facebook we’re talking about, you have complete control of your gameplay. In other words, FB will only share scores with people your playing with.
Instant Games is available now in 30 countries for iOS v8 and Android v5 or later for both platforms.
In the latest version of the Messenger app, open a conversation with a friend (or friends!), tap on the game controller icon just below where you type your message, and choose a game to start playing right away. After you finish a round, people in the conversation will see your score and will have the opportunity to challenge you back. People can also discover games within the Messenger search field, or on Facebook News Feed where they can play solo or challenge friends back in Messenger.
After playing around with my phone for a few minutes, I want to clarify a few things that weren’t clear to me. When it says you can play through your News Feed, what it mean is you can play on your computer through the integrated web based Messenger. You cannot play through the Facebook phone app, it’s just not there. You have to be in a chat through Messenger to play any games. As for the games bookmark, it exists to the right of your News Feed underneath the trending topics, and integrated into the Messenger app.
This is just the start for Facebook’s new Instant Games cross-platform gaming experience. As time goes on they will add more games and more partnerships. Facebook really does want to insinuate itself into every aspect of your life. Kinda like a hentai tentacle monster (don’t look that up, seriously, especially if you are around children or at work).
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