When Facebook shifted to a mobile-first strategy, games largely fell by the wayside for the company. And along with instant gameplay comes instant marketing: Now, a Facebook ad for a video game may sometimes let users actually play the game itself.īroadly, Monday's announcement appears meant to reposition Facebook as a major mass-market gaming platform for the first time since the FarmVille era a decade ago. The initial goal for the new cloud service is to let users instantly play full mobile-quality games within Facebook without having to download them from an app store.

With Player Names, Facebook appears to be officially embracing selectable alternate identities for the first time. While other tech behemoths - including Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia - have aimed their cloud gaming strategies at big-budget 'AAA' titles, Facebook will attempt to leverage new data centers and its planet-spanning user base to reshape the world of casual free-to-play games.įacebook will allow users to create an alternate 'Player Name.' While the company has allowed pseudonyms in the past in limited cases, Facebook has long emphasized the importance of real-name identities across its services. Revealed a broad new cloud gaming strategy aimed at upending the lucrative and fast-growing mobile games ecosystem.

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