In a pretty cool mood from Facebook, the social network has announced a new way to play games with friends on their site. Instead of relying on third party apps (and so forcing constant invites on your long suffering friends), there is a more direct way to play. You can challenge people on your friends list via messenger or live feed to a number of interactive, multi-player games.
Facebook has always been a little behind on the whole games aspect of social networking. Yet, they have been wildly popular in the the games that they have supported: Farmville, Mafia, Bejeweled, Words With Friends….a whole host of apps that your fifty-year-old mother is addicted to. Now they are listening to what their users have been wanting all along: an easier way to play more games with friends, wherever they are.
Facebook Gaming: The New Way To Start Social Fights
There are two ways to challenge your friends, and potentially ruin your friendships through competitive in-fighting. The first is via messenger, right within a chat window. The second is through your Facebook feed, either opening a game for anyone to take, or starting one specifically with the person of your choice.
So far the titles include:
- Pac-Man
- Galaga
- Arkanoid
- Space Invaders
- Track and Field 100M
- Shufflecats Mini
- Words With Friends: Frenzy
- Hex
- Everwing
- Endless Lake
- Templae 2048
- The Tribes: Puzzle Rush
- 2020 Connect
- Puzzle Bobble
- Zookeeper
- Brick Pop
- Wordalot Express
This is only the first launch releases. Facebook is already promising that more will be on the way, though no titles are being teased yet. Chances are they will wait until they see if the games are a success or flop before putting in the effort of allowing more HTML 5 games. And of course there is the marketing aspect, as they can offer game studios and app developers a chance to get in on the bottom floor.
An Awesome Move
I am not even going to front: I am thrilled about this. No one knows this, but I am in a long distance relationship. My boyfriend of one year currently lives in Bangladesh, while I am in the US. We often play games, chess being a go-to, battleship being another. But that is as good as it gets unless we want to battle the annoying network gaming issues of two person gaming on platforms like Steam and Origin.
This is such a simple little idea that a lot of us without friends, family and SO’s across the world will appreciate.
Source: FB Newsroom
