7 ms·

Gameroom

117 points by Doolwind 10y ago

Daniel_Marcos 10y ago
This looks like a glorified browser for games that are already playable on browser. It doesn't seem to be optimized for gaming at all (it even feels laggier). Is the purpose of it just to increase discoverability of Facebook games? This is disappointing. When I read Facebook bought Gameroom.com a couple weeks ago, I expected something related to their VR platform. Not this.
- wickedlogic 10y ago
  Very sad this isn't turning my room into a game.
  - pavlov 10y ago
    There's always the HTC Vive for that.
- Impossible 10y ago
  It's even weirder that they've launched this platform completely separate from the Oculus platform. I understand the marketing reasons for this. Oculus has to not require a Facebook login, while Gameroom does, Oculus is VR only, etc. But you'd think maybe Gameroom could have Oculus support without too much blow back from Reddit? Facebook seems to be following the time honored big tech company tradition of having different business units completely reinvent the wheel working on the same set of features in parallel for no good reason.
  - duaneb 10y ago
    Seems like a solid incremental addition to oculus in another news cycle.
  - koder2016 10y ago
    Who would want to tarnish the Oculus brand with Facebook's "social" slot games?
    - NTripleOne 10y ago
      And besides, Oclulus have done enough to tarnish the brand themselves anyway.
- socialist_coder 10y ago
  Games are less playable in the browser now than they were 2 years ago though. Unity webplayer and Flash are both getting blocked by browsers now. I imagine this Gameroom app supports both of those. Edit: Yeah, look at this: https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-editor-beta/ https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-e... So, now we have a way to target the web before web assembly is live and adopted.
  - Daniel_Marcos 10y ago
    Thank you! I see the rationale behind this now. I still think the approach is wrong, though.
excalibur 10y ago
Is this the PC equivalent of Messenger, designed to give Facebook total access to your system?
- ihuman 10y ago
  Facebook messanger gives Facebook total access to your computer?
  - vthallam 10y ago
    I guess the parent comment means that messenger takes a lot of permissions on mobile.
    - ihuman 10y ago
      The android version? I've only used the Windows 10 and iOS versions, so I am not aware of what permissions it asks for.
      - JoelBennett 10y ago
        For Android (and for Windows Phone) it requires permissions to pretty much everything. It's pretty evil in that regard.
        khc 10y ago
        thankfully this is no longer true in newish andoird - you can disable or not grant most of the permissions
        rtkwe 10y ago
        It's all related to features in the app at least, it's not like they're asking for things they don't need to make all the features work. I might call SMS unnecessary but that's because I don't really want to use it for SMS.
        cholantesh 10y ago
serge2k 10y ago
I'm really getting tired of Facebook et. al trying to insert themselves into every facet of my existence. I'll keep using Steam and Gog. Steam is pretty bleh, but it does the job and I don't have to put up with Facebook.
- WildGreenLeave 10y ago
  Personally I think Steam is one of the best game platform (for a lack of a better word). It is fast, easy to use, nice sales/cheap in general, downloads are quick. While on the other side Playstation store is the exact oposite of what I just wrote.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    > It is fast my main complaint is that I find it pretty clunky and slow. edit: The UI, not downloads. Browsing the store is usually not that pleasant, switching tabs, etc... Downloads usually cap out around 40MB/sec on my connection. Which is fine.
    - popey456963 10y ago
      Really? I'm comparing with others I've tested here and it seems by far to be the best available at the moment. Downloads always seem to work, you can restart them and it actually continues straight on instead of some others that start at the previous block of information (sometimes half a gigabyte before). You have skins that make the client look actually rather nice [0] and you have a game library like no other. It combines the size of library that contains every game you want, with the limit of only having decent games. Desura, UPlay, etc. seem to have little to no comparability in options, versatility and ease of use. [0] https://puu.sh/s3ivj/c13e709ead.png https://puu.sh/s3ivj/c13e709ead.png
    - pixelcloud 10y ago
      Some of it is highly dependant on your internet connection. But the games library seems to be snappy with 300 games. I find that updates can run extremely slow though, 1-2MB patch taking 5 minutes to download! I remember when Steam WAS really horrible. The green client ran so poorly and was extremely slow at updating anything,
dfar1 10y ago
PC only. is this 2004?
- city41 10y ago
  more specifically, Windows only.
  - vpol 10y ago
    So... 2001
    - rubidium 10y ago
      or 2020, when mac is left abandoned in the trash heap in favor of iJackets
      - jay_kyburz 10y ago
        "Its says windows 7 or better", so I assumed all macOS versions are supported. :)
- jakebasile 10y ago
  It says "Designed for PC Gaming", why would it release elsewhere?
  - NTripleOne 10y ago
    What it says it is and what it is/will be are two completely different things. If anything, I'd say mac users probably fall into the demographic of people who would actually want to play the kinds of games this will harbour.
adamredwoods 10y ago
A board game room is a better place to play.
jonbarker 10y ago
Windows only? Also no way to see what games exist without downloading?
- brilliantzen 10y ago
  Taking a client on windows approach.
gambiting 10y ago
My problem is that I opened the website, read the description, and I still don't know what this does. Is it a launcher for my PC games? Why the hell would I want another one?
xorl 10y ago
This feels and loads games like my moms Pogo games. Not a good start.
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  It's made for your mom. Sounds like a good start to me.
- Kiro 10y ago
  What's wrong with your mom?
j2bax 10y ago
Facebook could do something so powerful and fun by seamlessly combining their social platform and games... But this is what they've come up with?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- firasd 10y ago
  This kinda happened in 2007... hence Words With Friends, FarmVille, etc. In retrospect it seems bizarre that random developers were able to publish updates with our own icons to the main Newsfeed.
  - j2bax 10y ago
    I suppose I am speaking of a far more integrated portal for friends to play casual games together. More realtime than the newsfeed volley of 2007. If Facebook could create a really nice lobby platform and then have a handful of casual games, board games, card games etc. It would be very locked down and focused on friendly gaming, not the spamcity that was/is "Facebook games".
deanCommie 10y ago
How infuriatingly presumptious. The page has a single screenshot, a meaningless blurb, and an an "install now" button - as if I'm going to automatically download and install every single thing Facebook announces. How about even a bare-minimum attempt at explaining what this is all about? (I mean, yes, I know how to google and figure it out, but should I have to?)
- koder2016 10y ago
  It looks like one of those game pop-up ads - only full-screen. Yeah, I am going to install you crappy client to download your crappy freemium games.
  - sammatilda 10y ago
    Crappy client that will then take over my PC and give you all my data.
- scrabble 10y ago
  I saw that one of the screenshots from the limited number they had was Willy Wonka Slots. So that's a no.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- barbs 10y ago
  Is it just me or is the "Install Now" button broken? I'm on a Mac but I would've assumed I could download the .exe file.
  - kerbs 10y ago
    It literally says "Available for Windows 7 and above" with an unmistakable Windows logo :).
erk__ 10y ago
Looks like they changed the name from facebook arcade. The help in my language refers to it as arcade.
phmagic 10y ago
Is Facebook GameRoom the new Yahoo Games?
- fspacef 10y ago
  Exactly what I felt. As always - history repeats itself.
jakebasile 10y ago
> From shooters to strategy, builders to bingo, find your game in Gameroom, designed for PC gaming. I just can't see this competing with Steam and Origin. It took years for Origin to get as much acceptance as it has in the PC market, and it started with AAA games people wanted - not "Oz: Broken Kingdom" and "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Slots". Origin still gets crap because it isn't Steam.
niftich 10y ago
They rebranded! This was previously 'Facebook Games Arcade Beta' [1], then officially unnamed, but occasionally referred to as 'Facebook Arcade' [2]. At the time TechCruch wrote about this in August [3], it was less clear what their gaming portal ambitions were, and I lamented why they'd push this product with the Facebook brand so strongly instead of de-emphasizing it in favor of a different brand [4]. Since then, they had a partial change of heart -- the URL for this site is still through Facebook, but on the splash page, the only mention of Facebook is the [f] in the 'Gameroom' logo. [1] http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/facebook-games-arcade-beta/639432 http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/facebook-games-arcade-beta... [2] https://www.facebook.com/arcade https://www.facebook.com/arcade [3] https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/facebook-desktop-game-platform/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/facebook-desktop-game-plat... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12313908#12314672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12313908#12314672
- meesles 10y ago
  I disagree, I still very much feel the Facebook brand through this product. The URL, plus the title of the tab, plus the recognizable FB logo next to the primary title of the product, and then it's still called the 'Facebook Gameroom' in the tab of the application. http://imgur.com/a/XIZVX http://imgur.com/a/XIZVX
eterpstra 10y ago
Didn't Yahoo do this more than 10 years ago? I remember playing a lot of checkers as a lab monitor in college.
socialist_coder 10y ago
I wonder if this has Unity webplayer & Flash runtimes built into it so it will work even though browsers block those plugins now. Edit: yes! https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-editor-beta/ https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-e...
lai 10y ago
Why is this Windows-compatible only?
- jakebasile 10y ago
  If it's targeting PC gamers, there's almost no reason to release for anything but Windows.
  - ben_jones 10y ago
    That's unfair I think. It's a perfectly fine idea that has been executed poorly multiple times.
    - jakebasile 10y ago
      It's not failed for a lack of stores on Linux. Both Steam and GOG sell Linux games, The gaming ecosystem on Linux just doesn't compare to that on Windows. Driver support isn't there, AAA/AA game support isn't there, backwards compatibility isn't there. It is much better in recent years than ever but I think this is a knock on effect from the general resurgence of PC gaming as a whole. Trust me, I'd love it if this weren't the case but Linux gaming has been pushed as least as long as the Linux desktop, and I don't see either getting much more traction. It's a chicken and egg problem.
mucker 10y ago
* No feature list * No game list * Confusing as to what this has to do with "rooms" * Demands I download a web app!?!??!!? Go home FB. You're drunk.
sturadnidge 10y ago
I don't think Facebook ever grokked the concept of multiple personas - LinkedIn is for my work persona, Steam (and Origin, Twitch etc) is for my gaming persona, and on Twitter I can have different accounts for each. As long as Facebook requires a single account with real identity, it will never be anything more than for my family & acquaintances persona. Most gamers I know feel the same... maybe we're in the minority, but maybe not. Be interesting to know how many Steam accounts are linked with Facebook as an indication of how this might play out (aside from the potential for exclusive titles etc).
- throwawaylalala 10y ago
  Did they? Or do they not care?
- DannyBee 10y ago
  I don't think you are a minority. the average gamer on a given popular game is usually going on about how fat your mom is in between rounds or on chat or whatever (it's worse than this, of course, i'm being nice). Somehow, i don't think they are going to be up for tying that to their real identity. There are two possibilities. This either massively improves the discourse on games like COD and the equivalent of every xbox live game ever. Or, people don't use it, because they don't want that. I"m going to go with the second. Put another way: can you imagine the average gamer in COD wanting to tie their character "XXXAyeCarambeHarambeXXX420 to their real identity?
  - kevhsu 10y ago
    These rude 'average gamers' you speak of are the vocal minority in my experience... Most of us are normal people.
    - striking 10y ago
      Average gamers in CoD are not average gamers. So there's that.
      - 10y ago
jfoster 10y ago
Seems like the comments here are slamming Facebook for this, but I think sometimes you have to take a step back and realize you might not be the target audience, and that products/services typically launch before getting the proposition spot on. The landing page is certainly light on text, looks like it's got nothing to do with Oculus, and it's Windows-only, but perhaps Facebook are approaching this as a start-up would? I am certain Facebook will test variants of that landing page, get installs from other parts of their platform, and if going beyond an MVP, add Oculus stuff and other platforms. I'm not about to install it either, but I bet they get tens (maybe hundreds) of millions of installs before the end of 2016. From a start-up perspective, I find this type of launch more fascinating because I can watch them iterate.
eva1984 10y ago
I think PC gamer hate Facebook, or barely find it relevant? True?
- jakebasile 10y ago
  I don't think the ratio of Facebook hater to Facebook user is significantly different among PC gamers than it is among any other technical crowd (HN, for example). I am a PC gamer, and I use Facebook for some things and don't think they're inherently evil. I also don't think this product is meant for me.
socialist_coder 10y ago
You guys are not understanding this at all. Flash and Unity webplayer plugins are being blocked by browsers now. Flash still works for the most part, but Unity doesn't. Facebook is losing game players because of this, and new games are being built in Unity and not Flash, so it's harder for them to launch on Facebook. This solves that problem by letting you compile your game for Facebook Gameroom straight from the Unity editor, and supports the Unity in app purchase plugin. So now that mobile game that you just built can easily launch on Facebook too with very little effort. https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-editor-beta/ https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-e... Html5 / WebGL is not an option. It's super super slow and doesn't even work for half your players. Until web assembly is live and has good adoption, this Facebook Gameroom thing is going to be the best bet for launching your Unity game on Facebook. Big studios can afford to develop Flash versions of their Unity mobile games just for Facebook, but small studios can't. So this is also great for that, to level the playing field a bit. Edit: I'm actually fairly excited about this. We have a bunch of Unity mobile games out there but have launched none of them on Facebook because of the bullshit with the webplayer plugin and how terrible the WebGL stuff is right now. Now we can finally launch on Facebook! This is awesome for small Unity studios. Very very awesome. I can also say with good confidence that not many people commenting are the target market here. You already have steam installed and you play games through that? Probably not the target market. If you play a ton of freemium games on your phone and/or you used to play freemium Flash games on Facebook - you are the demographic for Gameroom.
- zelias 10y ago
  This perspective actually made sense of this release for me
- herbst 10y ago
  I always had the impression that webgl games run way smoother than unity games on chrome/ubuntu.
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  Don't get too excited, there is no discoverability other than what you pay for as far as Im aware. Steam gives you 1m impressions when you launch, and 2.5m for updates. Not to mention nice exposure in new release section and fairly good search tools. Gameroom has none of this.
Axsuul 10y ago
This is obviously a strong play by Facebook taken from the WeChat playbook. Furthermore, it helps connect the dots with their Oculus purchase. Believe it or not, any company... even Facebook, can brand themselves as a gaming/entertainment company over time. It was not too long ago that Facebook was the de-facto platform for games such as Farmville.
ipsin 10y ago
In case anyone else is curious, you can't actually play any games unless you have the Facebook Apps Platform enabled, and you can't play any games unless you share public profile info. What I can't figure out is who these game developers are and what they do with that info (beyond displaying my name in multiplayer games). Can it be used to build remarketing lists, etc?
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  My game is there, and we don't have the Facebook stuff enabled so it doesn't ask for permission when it launches. But of course, instead we ask you to make a custom account for our game so you can log in and out on different platforms.
arcanus 10y ago
Origin, steam, battle net, uplay... And now gameroom. Is steam so profitable this makes sense? What possible motive does FB, one of the largest companies in the world, have to compete? The revenues should be paltry.
- jameskilton 10y ago
  I doubt this is about direct revenue. This is about further cementing that "Facebook is The Internet" to as many people as possible. Facebook wants to know and control everything you do on your computer, on your mobile device, and on the internet at large. From all of that, they then earn the real revenue via advertisements.
- notgood 10y ago
  One theory: Facebook most important metric is session duration, the only part where a big chunk of people spend more time than on Facebook, is on videogames.
- robryan 10y ago
  Facebook made a lot of its early revenue off games people were playing via their platform. Over time that dropped off and now they make the revenue pushing ios/android apps. I guess that it is a long term play to try and get some of that control back.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>Is steam so profitable this makes sense? We don't have the numbers obviously, but Steam must be so profitable that Valve is primarily a software distributor these days. Over the past six years, they've released only two titles (Portal 2 in 2011 and Dota 2 in 2013), and Half-Life 3, a game that is guaranteed to sell millions upon millions of copies, isn't even on the horizon.
  - ejstronge 10y ago
    That's a really great point - do you have any insight into whether Valve's headcount reflects a shift in priorities to software distribution vs game design?
colept 10y ago
No thanks.
- MildlySerious 10y ago
  Agreed. I hope it won't end up with another platform I don't want to own/be part of thet gets exclusives. It probably will.
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    Considering the demographic, I bet they are trying to be steam for casual gamers, rather hoping to enter an entrenched market with a 400 lb gorilla of a leader. Though maybe this is an oculus play.
    - MildlySerious 10y ago
      Oh I didn't think of Oculus. That makes quite a bit of sense, actually. That would give them a chance to roll their own policy for ads in games, among other things. In combination with VR it will be interesting to see what will come out of that, despite not being part of the target audience myself.
      - exodust 10y ago
        The problem is that Oculus is not hugely popular and faces stiff competition from other VR hardware. It would be silly to "need Oculus" for a Facebook game. Wouldn't that be a turning point in gaming.. requiring Facebook hardware before you can enter a building in a VR world. I guess that's where it's headed, and would be very sad to have that fragmentation in VR.
        MildlySerious 10y ago
        It wouldn't surprise me if that is how it starts, before consolidating and becoming a more homogenous industry down the road. I agree, it would be sad. I can imagine the majority of people on HN would probably prefer open and less locked in alternatives.
andrewclunn 10y ago
Your aunt and mother will soon be chatting over messanger while they compete in a candy crush tournament, all with a browser on chromebooks. They're not here for you hardcore gamers. They will come for you later,once they have dominated... oh wait, Windows only? Haha haha, never mind.
throwaway38472 10y ago
Haha, finally I can have a desktop version of FarmVille. Really tho, this is emblematic of the endemic problem with tech monoliths misunderstanding their audience. It somehow reminds me of a planning deck I once saw for supporting "party planning" mode where the actual use case was "porn mode" but the bizdev had to make it pc.
bitmapbrother 10y ago
This is not going to end nicely. Forget about the fact that Steam is pretty much insurmountable for a second, but this a space Facebook doesn't belong in.
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  They havn't put a lot of work into it I dont think. Its just a re-skin of Facebook itself in something like Electron.
slowandlow 10y ago
Fuck Facebook.
exodust 10y ago
>It can tie users deeper into the Facebook identity layer, making it harder for them to ditch the social network It's all about ecosystem lock-in for these tech giants. Their agenda-driven ways are not compatible with what gamers expect from a good platform. It's why so much hate is directed towards services such as Origin and even worse, Uplay - which needs to run in addition to the Steam client. Or any service requiring its own "launcher". To its credit, Planet Coaster recently ditched its own launcher (Frontier Launchpad) and took the game to Steam. Frontier Launcher can now be uninstalled. Awesome. Planet Coaster is awesome btw. Unless this "Gameroom" service allows sign-up via email address and avatar/handle/nickname identity, I'll be giving it a miss. And even if does offer third party authentication, I'll still likely give it a miss.
rjbwork 10y ago
Great. A furthering of the attempted fragmentation of my gaming license management software. For the same reason that I don't buy things on UPlay and Origin, I won't be buying things on Gameroom.
wwalser 10y ago
Hacker news, where having a brand name means all products you released have to be fully featured, documented, well marketed, omni-platform and take full advantage of the "obvious" synergy with your existing products. Otherwise, it's clearly total rubbish. Maybe ah… this was built and released by a small team who may or may not go on to iterate on the implementation pending collection and evaluation of usage data. Perhaps you would like to comment on this as if it's an early iteration? Maybe you could take the painful step of recognizing that the people who built it are people; individual human lives with limited time and resources and therefore attempted to strike a balance with respect to resources spent in an effort to release something, limited for sure but compelling.
- rootlocus 10y ago
  > Maybe you could take the painful step of recognizing that the people who built it are people; individual human lives with limited time and resources [...] Except it's made by Facebook (not a small team of indie developers pouring their heart and soul), and it's not new or even in demand, since we have steam, origin and gog.
jay_kyburz 10y ago
Hey, what do you know. My new game Blight of the Immortals is already up and running in Gameroom. I didn't have to do anything! (Previously had the game inside one of those Facebook canvases. )

117 points by Doolwind 10y ago

This looks like a glorified browser for games that are already playable on browser. It doesn't seem to be optimized for gaming at all (it even feels laggier). Is the purpose of it just to increase discoverability of Facebook games? This is disappointing. When I read Facebook bought Gameroom.com a couple weeks ago, I expected something related to their VR platform. Not this.

wickedlogic 10y ago
Very sad this isn't turning my room into a game.
- pavlov 10y ago
  There's always the HTC Vive for that.
Impossible 10y ago
It's even weirder that they've launched this platform completely separate from the Oculus platform. I understand the marketing reasons for this. Oculus has to not require a Facebook login, while Gameroom does, Oculus is VR only, etc. But you'd think maybe Gameroom could have Oculus support without too much blow back from Reddit? Facebook seems to be following the time honored big tech company tradition of having different business units completely reinvent the wheel working on the same set of features in parallel for no good reason.
- duaneb 10y ago
  Seems like a solid incremental addition to oculus in another news cycle.
- koder2016 10y ago
  Who would want to tarnish the Oculus brand with Facebook's "social" slot games?
  - NTripleOne 10y ago
    And besides, Oclulus have done enough to tarnish the brand themselves anyway.
socialist_coder 10y ago
Games are less playable in the browser now than they were 2 years ago though. Unity webplayer and Flash are both getting blocked by browsers now. I imagine this Gameroom app supports both of those. Edit: Yeah, look at this: https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-editor-beta/ https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-e... So, now we have a way to target the web before web assembly is live and adopted.
- Daniel_Marcos 10y ago
  Thank you! I see the rationale behind this now. I still think the approach is wrong, though.

excalibur 10y ago

Is this the PC equivalent of Messenger, designed to give Facebook total access to your system?

ihuman 10y ago
Facebook messanger gives Facebook total access to your computer?
- vthallam 10y ago
  I guess the parent comment means that messenger takes a lot of permissions on mobile.
  - ihuman 10y ago
    The android version? I've only used the Windows 10 and iOS versions, so I am not aware of what permissions it asks for.
    - JoelBennett 10y ago
      For Android (and for Windows Phone) it requires permissions to pretty much everything. It's pretty evil in that regard.
      - khc 10y ago
        thankfully this is no longer true in newish andoird - you can disable or not grant most of the permissions
      - rtkwe 10y ago
        It's all related to features in the app at least, it's not like they're asking for things they don't need to make all the features work. I might call SMS unnecessary but that's because I don't really want to use it for SMS.
      - cholantesh 10y ago

serge2k 10y ago

I'm really getting tired of Facebook et. al trying to insert themselves into every facet of my existence. I'll keep using Steam and Gog. Steam is pretty bleh, but it does the job and I don't have to put up with Facebook.

WildGreenLeave 10y ago
Personally I think Steam is one of the best game platform (for a lack of a better word). It is fast, easy to use, nice sales/cheap in general, downloads are quick. While on the other side Playstation store is the exact oposite of what I just wrote.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > It is fast my main complaint is that I find it pretty clunky and slow. edit: The UI, not downloads. Browsing the store is usually not that pleasant, switching tabs, etc... Downloads usually cap out around 40MB/sec on my connection. Which is fine.
  - popey456963 10y ago
    Really? I'm comparing with others I've tested here and it seems by far to be the best available at the moment. Downloads always seem to work, you can restart them and it actually continues straight on instead of some others that start at the previous block of information (sometimes half a gigabyte before). You have skins that make the client look actually rather nice [0] and you have a game library like no other. It combines the size of library that contains every game you want, with the limit of only having decent games. Desura, UPlay, etc. seem to have little to no comparability in options, versatility and ease of use. [0] https://puu.sh/s3ivj/c13e709ead.png https://puu.sh/s3ivj/c13e709ead.png
  - pixelcloud 10y ago
    Some of it is highly dependant on your internet connection. But the games library seems to be snappy with 300 games. I find that updates can run extremely slow though, 1-2MB patch taking 5 minutes to download! I remember when Steam WAS really horrible. The green client ran so poorly and was extremely slow at updating anything,

dfar1 10y ago

PC only. is this 2004?

city41 10y ago
more specifically, Windows only.
- vpol 10y ago
  So... 2001
  - rubidium 10y ago
    or 2020, when mac is left abandoned in the trash heap in favor of iJackets
    - jay_kyburz 10y ago
      "Its says windows 7 or better", so I assumed all macOS versions are supported. :)
jakebasile 10y ago
It says "Designed for PC Gaming", why would it release elsewhere?
- NTripleOne 10y ago
  What it says it is and what it is/will be are two completely different things. If anything, I'd say mac users probably fall into the demographic of people who would actually want to play the kinds of games this will harbour.

adamredwoods 10y ago

A board game room is a better place to play.

jonbarker 10y ago

Windows only? Also no way to see what games exist without downloading?

brilliantzen 10y ago
Taking a client on windows approach.

gambiting 10y ago

My problem is that I opened the website, read the description, and I still don't know what this does. Is it a launcher for my PC games? Why the hell would I want another one?

xorl 10y ago

This feels and loads games like my moms Pogo games. Not a good start.

jay_kyburz 10y ago
It's made for your mom. Sounds like a good start to me.
Kiro 10y ago
What's wrong with your mom?

j2bax 10y ago

Facebook could do something so powerful and fun by seamlessly combining their social platform and games... But this is what they've come up with?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
firasd 10y ago
This kinda happened in 2007... hence Words With Friends, FarmVille, etc. In retrospect it seems bizarre that random developers were able to publish updates with our own icons to the main Newsfeed.
- j2bax 10y ago
  I suppose I am speaking of a far more integrated portal for friends to play casual games together. More realtime than the newsfeed volley of 2007. If Facebook could create a really nice lobby platform and then have a handful of casual games, board games, card games etc. It would be very locked down and focused on friendly gaming, not the spamcity that was/is "Facebook games".

deanCommie 10y ago

How infuriatingly presumptious. The page has a single screenshot, a meaningless blurb, and an an "install now" button - as if I'm going to automatically download and install every single thing Facebook announces. How about even a bare-minimum attempt at explaining what this is all about? (I mean, yes, I know how to google and figure it out, but should I have to?)

koder2016 10y ago
It looks like one of those game pop-up ads - only full-screen. Yeah, I am going to install you crappy client to download your crappy freemium games.
- sammatilda 10y ago
  Crappy client that will then take over my PC and give you all my data.
scrabble 10y ago
I saw that one of the screenshots from the limited number they had was Willy Wonka Slots. So that's a no.
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barbs 10y ago
Is it just me or is the "Install Now" button broken? I'm on a Mac but I would've assumed I could download the .exe file.
- kerbs 10y ago
  It literally says "Available for Windows 7 and above" with an unmistakable Windows logo :).

erk__ 10y ago

Looks like they changed the name from facebook arcade. The help in my language refers to it as arcade.

phmagic 10y ago

Is Facebook GameRoom the new Yahoo Games?

fspacef 10y ago
Exactly what I felt. As always - history repeats itself.

jakebasile 10y ago

> From shooters to strategy, builders to bingo, find your game in Gameroom, designed for PC gaming. I just can't see this competing with Steam and Origin. It took years for Origin to get as much acceptance as it has in the PC market, and it started with AAA games people wanted - not "Oz: Broken Kingdom" and "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Slots". Origin still gets crap because it isn't Steam.

niftich 10y ago

They rebranded! This was previously 'Facebook Games Arcade Beta' [1], then officially unnamed, but occasionally referred to as 'Facebook Arcade' [2]. At the time TechCruch wrote about this in August [3], it was less clear what their gaming portal ambitions were, and I lamented why they'd push this product with the Facebook brand so strongly instead of de-emphasizing it in favor of a different brand [4]. Since then, they had a partial change of heart -- the URL for this site is still through Facebook, but on the splash page, the only mention of Facebook is the [f] in the 'Gameroom' logo. [1] http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/facebook-games-arcade-beta/639432 http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/facebook-games-arcade-beta... [2] https://www.facebook.com/arcade https://www.facebook.com/arcade [3] https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/facebook-desktop-game-platform/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/facebook-desktop-game-plat... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12313908#12314672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12313908#12314672

meesles 10y ago
I disagree, I still very much feel the Facebook brand through this product. The URL, plus the title of the tab, plus the recognizable FB logo next to the primary title of the product, and then it's still called the 'Facebook Gameroom' in the tab of the application. http://imgur.com/a/XIZVX http://imgur.com/a/XIZVX

eterpstra 10y ago

Didn't Yahoo do this more than 10 years ago? I remember playing a lot of checkers as a lab monitor in college.

socialist_coder 10y ago

I wonder if this has Unity webplayer & Flash runtimes built into it so it will work even though browsers block those plugins now. Edit: yes! https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-editor-beta/ https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-e...

lai 10y ago

Why is this Windows-compatible only?

jakebasile 10y ago
If it's targeting PC gamers, there's almost no reason to release for anything but Windows.
- ben_jones 10y ago
  That's unfair I think. It's a perfectly fine idea that has been executed poorly multiple times.
  - jakebasile 10y ago
    It's not failed for a lack of stores on Linux. Both Steam and GOG sell Linux games, The gaming ecosystem on Linux just doesn't compare to that on Windows. Driver support isn't there, AAA/AA game support isn't there, backwards compatibility isn't there. It is much better in recent years than ever but I think this is a knock on effect from the general resurgence of PC gaming as a whole. Trust me, I'd love it if this weren't the case but Linux gaming has been pushed as least as long as the Linux desktop, and I don't see either getting much more traction. It's a chicken and egg problem.

mucker 10y ago

* No feature list * No game list * Confusing as to what this has to do with "rooms" * Demands I download a web app!?!??!!? Go home FB. You're drunk.

sturadnidge 10y ago

I don't think Facebook ever grokked the concept of multiple personas - LinkedIn is for my work persona, Steam (and Origin, Twitch etc) is for my gaming persona, and on Twitter I can have different accounts for each. As long as Facebook requires a single account with real identity, it will never be anything more than for my family & acquaintances persona. Most gamers I know feel the same... maybe we're in the minority, but maybe not. Be interesting to know how many Steam accounts are linked with Facebook as an indication of how this might play out (aside from the potential for exclusive titles etc).

throwawaylalala 10y ago
Did they? Or do they not care?
DannyBee 10y ago
I don't think you are a minority. the average gamer on a given popular game is usually going on about how fat your mom is in between rounds or on chat or whatever (it's worse than this, of course, i'm being nice). Somehow, i don't think they are going to be up for tying that to their real identity. There are two possibilities. This either massively improves the discourse on games like COD and the equivalent of every xbox live game ever. Or, people don't use it, because they don't want that. I"m going to go with the second. Put another way: can you imagine the average gamer in COD wanting to tie their character "XXXAyeCarambeHarambeXXX420 to their real identity?
- kevhsu 10y ago
  These rude 'average gamers' you speak of are the vocal minority in my experience... Most of us are normal people.
  - striking 10y ago
    Average gamers in CoD are not average gamers. So there's that.
    - 10y ago

jfoster 10y ago

Seems like the comments here are slamming Facebook for this, but I think sometimes you have to take a step back and realize you might not be the target audience, and that products/services typically launch before getting the proposition spot on. The landing page is certainly light on text, looks like it's got nothing to do with Oculus, and it's Windows-only, but perhaps Facebook are approaching this as a start-up would? I am certain Facebook will test variants of that landing page, get installs from other parts of their platform, and if going beyond an MVP, add Oculus stuff and other platforms. I'm not about to install it either, but I bet they get tens (maybe hundreds) of millions of installs before the end of 2016. From a start-up perspective, I find this type of launch more fascinating because I can watch them iterate.

eva1984 10y ago

I think PC gamer hate Facebook, or barely find it relevant? True?

jakebasile 10y ago
I don't think the ratio of Facebook hater to Facebook user is significantly different among PC gamers than it is among any other technical crowd (HN, for example). I am a PC gamer, and I use Facebook for some things and don't think they're inherently evil. I also don't think this product is meant for me.

socialist_coder 10y ago

You guys are not understanding this at all. Flash and Unity webplayer plugins are being blocked by browsers now. Flash still works for the most part, but Unity doesn't. Facebook is losing game players because of this, and new games are being built in Unity and not Flash, so it's harder for them to launch on Facebook. This solves that problem by letting you compile your game for Facebook Gameroom straight from the Unity editor, and supports the Unity in app purchase plugin. So now that mobile game that you just built can easily launch on Facebook too with very little effort. https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-editor-beta/ https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/11/01/unity-e... Html5 / WebGL is not an option. It's super super slow and doesn't even work for half your players. Until web assembly is live and has good adoption, this Facebook Gameroom thing is going to be the best bet for launching your Unity game on Facebook. Big studios can afford to develop Flash versions of their Unity mobile games just for Facebook, but small studios can't. So this is also great for that, to level the playing field a bit. Edit: I'm actually fairly excited about this. We have a bunch of Unity mobile games out there but have launched none of them on Facebook because of the bullshit with the webplayer plugin and how terrible the WebGL stuff is right now. Now we can finally launch on Facebook! This is awesome for small Unity studios. Very very awesome. I can also say with good confidence that not many people commenting are the target market here. You already have steam installed and you play games through that? Probably not the target market. If you play a ton of freemium games on your phone and/or you used to play freemium Flash games on Facebook - you are the demographic for Gameroom.

zelias 10y ago
This perspective actually made sense of this release for me
herbst 10y ago
I always had the impression that webgl games run way smoother than unity games on chrome/ubuntu.
jay_kyburz 10y ago
Don't get too excited, there is no discoverability other than what you pay for as far as Im aware. Steam gives you 1m impressions when you launch, and 2.5m for updates. Not to mention nice exposure in new release section and fairly good search tools. Gameroom has none of this.

Axsuul 10y ago

This is obviously a strong play by Facebook taken from the WeChat playbook. Furthermore, it helps connect the dots with their Oculus purchase. Believe it or not, any company... even Facebook, can brand themselves as a gaming/entertainment company over time. It was not too long ago that Facebook was the de-facto platform for games such as Farmville.

ipsin 10y ago

In case anyone else is curious, you can't actually play any games unless you have the Facebook Apps Platform enabled, and you can't play any games unless you share public profile info. What I can't figure out is who these game developers are and what they do with that info (beyond displaying my name in multiplayer games). Can it be used to build remarketing lists, etc?

jay_kyburz 10y ago
My game is there, and we don't have the Facebook stuff enabled so it doesn't ask for permission when it launches. But of course, instead we ask you to make a custom account for our game so you can log in and out on different platforms.

arcanus 10y ago

Origin, steam, battle net, uplay... And now gameroom. Is steam so profitable this makes sense? What possible motive does FB, one of the largest companies in the world, have to compete? The revenues should be paltry.

jameskilton 10y ago
I doubt this is about direct revenue. This is about further cementing that "Facebook is The Internet" to as many people as possible. Facebook wants to know and control everything you do on your computer, on your mobile device, and on the internet at large. From all of that, they then earn the real revenue via advertisements.
notgood 10y ago
One theory: Facebook most important metric is session duration, the only part where a big chunk of people spend more time than on Facebook, is on videogames.
robryan 10y ago
Facebook made a lot of its early revenue off games people were playing via their platform. Over time that dropped off and now they make the revenue pushing ios/android apps. I guess that it is a long term play to try and get some of that control back.
enraged_camel 10y ago
>>Is steam so profitable this makes sense? We don't have the numbers obviously, but Steam must be so profitable that Valve is primarily a software distributor these days. Over the past six years, they've released only two titles (Portal 2 in 2011 and Dota 2 in 2013), and Half-Life 3, a game that is guaranteed to sell millions upon millions of copies, isn't even on the horizon.
- ejstronge 10y ago
  That's a really great point - do you have any insight into whether Valve's headcount reflects a shift in priorities to software distribution vs game design?

colept 10y ago

No thanks.

MildlySerious 10y ago
Agreed. I hope it won't end up with another platform I don't want to own/be part of thet gets exclusives. It probably will.
- WalterSear 10y ago
  Considering the demographic, I bet they are trying to be steam for casual gamers, rather hoping to enter an entrenched market with a 400 lb gorilla of a leader. Though maybe this is an oculus play.
  - MildlySerious 10y ago
    Oh I didn't think of Oculus. That makes quite a bit of sense, actually. That would give them a chance to roll their own policy for ads in games, among other things. In combination with VR it will be interesting to see what will come out of that, despite not being part of the target audience myself.
    - exodust 10y ago
      The problem is that Oculus is not hugely popular and faces stiff competition from other VR hardware. It would be silly to "need Oculus" for a Facebook game. Wouldn't that be a turning point in gaming.. requiring Facebook hardware before you can enter a building in a VR world. I guess that's where it's headed, and would be very sad to have that fragmentation in VR.
      - MildlySerious 10y ago
        It wouldn't surprise me if that is how it starts, before consolidating and becoming a more homogenous industry down the road. I agree, it would be sad. I can imagine the majority of people on HN would probably prefer open and less locked in alternatives.

andrewclunn 10y ago

Your aunt and mother will soon be chatting over messanger while they compete in a candy crush tournament, all with a browser on chromebooks. They're not here for you hardcore gamers. They will come for you later,once they have dominated... oh wait, Windows only? Haha haha, never mind.

throwaway38472 10y ago

Haha, finally I can have a desktop version of FarmVille. Really tho, this is emblematic of the endemic problem with tech monoliths misunderstanding their audience. It somehow reminds me of a planning deck I once saw for supporting "party planning" mode where the actual use case was "porn mode" but the bizdev had to make it pc.

bitmapbrother 10y ago

This is not going to end nicely. Forget about the fact that Steam is pretty much insurmountable for a second, but this a space Facebook doesn't belong in.

jay_kyburz 10y ago
They havn't put a lot of work into it I dont think. Its just a re-skin of Facebook itself in something like Electron.

slowandlow 10y ago

Fuck Facebook.

exodust 10y ago

>It can tie users deeper into the Facebook identity layer, making it harder for them to ditch the social network It's all about ecosystem lock-in for these tech giants. Their agenda-driven ways are not compatible with what gamers expect from a good platform. It's why so much hate is directed towards services such as Origin and even worse, Uplay - which needs to run in addition to the Steam client. Or any service requiring its own "launcher". To its credit, Planet Coaster recently ditched its own launcher (Frontier Launchpad) and took the game to Steam. Frontier Launcher can now be uninstalled. Awesome. Planet Coaster is awesome btw. Unless this "Gameroom" service allows sign-up via email address and avatar/handle/nickname identity, I'll be giving it a miss. And even if does offer third party authentication, I'll still likely give it a miss.

rjbwork 10y ago

Great. A furthering of the attempted fragmentation of my gaming license management software. For the same reason that I don't buy things on UPlay and Origin, I won't be buying things on Gameroom.

wwalser 10y ago

Hacker news, where having a brand name means all products you released have to be fully featured, documented, well marketed, omni-platform and take full advantage of the "obvious" synergy with your existing products. Otherwise, it's clearly total rubbish. Maybe ah… this was built and released by a small team who may or may not go on to iterate on the implementation pending collection and evaluation of usage data. Perhaps you would like to comment on this as if it's an early iteration? Maybe you could take the painful step of recognizing that the people who built it are people; individual human lives with limited time and resources and therefore attempted to strike a balance with respect to resources spent in an effort to release something, limited for sure but compelling.

rootlocus 10y ago
> Maybe you could take the painful step of recognizing that the people who built it are people; individual human lives with limited time and resources [...] Except it's made by Facebook (not a small team of indie developers pouring their heart and soul), and it's not new or even in demand, since we have steam, origin and gog.

jay_kyburz 10y ago

Hey, what do you know. My new game Blight of the Immortals is already up and running in Gameroom. I didn't have to do anything! (Previously had the game inside one of those Facebook canvases. )