Facebook’s cloud gaming strategy: smarter than it seems

Hello!

Long-time subscribers may remember a format I used back in April called “Three Shorts,” where I’d write three short essays, rather than my usual long singleton.

It’s back, but with a twist! The goal is to unpack the strategy behind the news in as few bullet points as possible.

Enjoy!

Facebook’s entry into cloud gaming — smarter than it seems! 😄

What happened?

• Yesterday Facebook added the ability for users to play streaming games on their “Gaming” tab, which is used by 380 million people each month.
• It’s comparable to cloud gaming services from Google (Stadia), Microsoft (xCloud), and Amazon (Luna), except instead of charging monthly subscription to access a library of games, the games on Facebook will be free and ad-supported.
• In an oddly snarky announcement post, Facebook emphasized the limitations of their new service, noting that their cloud streaming technology “still has a way to go,” and that they only have “several” games which are latency-tolerant, such as card and strategy games.
• The new service will be available on the web and on Android devices, but not on iOS, thanks to Apple’s prohibition of game streaming apps.

Why? What’s the strategy?

• Facebook’s advertising business is dependent on people spending a lot of time on their properties.
• Games are a natural fit because they take up a lot of people’s time, so this is a market that Facebook has focused on for over a decade. (Farmville, anyone?)
• Their strategy has always been to be able to leverage their social graph — you can just type a friend’s name and they can start playing with you, no matter what device they’re on.
• This is why Faccebook always focused on casual games that can run in a web browser, like Farmville and Solitaire. But now, streaming gaming technology unlocks a much broader set of games that previously required specialized, expensive hardware.
• Unlike other streaming game services, Facebook isn’t competing to replace console or PC games. They’re just looking to expand the type of game they can offer to their casual users.

Will it work?