This summer,
Facebook launched Fb.gg, its online gaming hub and Twitch competitor, designed
to attract game streamers and their fans to watch videos on Facebook instead of
on rival sites.
The destination shows videos based on which games and streaming
celebrities users follow, plus Liked Pages and Groups, and other featured suggestions
of what to watch. Now, Fb.gg is expanding to mobile with its launch on Android.
The new app,
first spotted by Sensor Tower, arrived just a few days ago and is currently in
beta testing.
According to
its description on Google Play, the app allows gamers and fans to discover a
“universe of gaming content,” connect with creators and join communities, and
play instant games like Everwing, Words with Friends, Basketball FRVR, and
others.
From the
screenshots, you can see how the Fb.gg app lets users tap navigation buttons at
the top to find streamers to watch, or to view those streamers they’re already
following, among other things. They can also participate in live conversations
during gameplay with other viewers. Here, they can react to the stream using
Facebook’s standard emoticon set of likes, hearts, haha’s and others.
Another
section lets gamers jump into simple and popular mobile games. These titles are
among those who were early participants in Facebook’s other gaming efforts in
the past, like Instant Games on Facebook and Messenger.
Facebook has
been trying to woo the gaming community for some time, to better compete
against Amazon’s Twitch and Google’s YouTube. There’s a large and growing
market for game streaming and viewing, with young viewers tuning in an average
of 3+ hours a week to watch, as Owojela’s Blog previously noted.
Facebook’s
efforts to directly challenge Twitch and others kicked off in earnest this
year, with the launch of its own version of Twitch’s Partner Program.
Facebook’s gaming creator pilot program,
as it’s called, allows viewers to tip their favorite gamers. And with the
arrival of Fb.gg in June, the virtual currency involved in those tips was being
referred to as Facebook Stars, with each star equating to $0.01.
Facebook
said it takes a cut of fans’ purchases of stars, ranging from 5%-30%, depending
on what size pack is bought.
Facebook
also recently began testing a monthly subscription option with game streamers,
similar to what’s offered by YouTube and Twitch.
Of course,
to truly compete with Twitch and YouTube, Facebook needs to go mobile as well –
especially since the upcoming Messenger redesign will hide away extraneous
features, like mobile gaming. That’s where Fb.gg’s app comes in.
The Android
version of the Fb.gg beta app launched on October 9, and already has over
10,000 installs, according to Google Play.
“We recently
started testing a standalone gaming app on Google Play that builds on the
experience of fb.gg, our destination on Facebook for people to find gaming
content in one place,” a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch. “The fb.gg app
is currently in beta with a limited set of features and available in the
Philippines. We’re using the beta phase to get feedback from the gaming
community and will make a decision on whether we roll it out further based on
that response,” they said.
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