{"id":16108,"date":"2016-11-30T08:03:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T08:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=16108"},"modified":"2016-11-30T08:03:36","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T08:03:36","slug":"facebook-messenger-launches-instant-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/facebook-messenger-launches-instant-games.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Messenger launches Instant Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Bored while you wait for someone to text back? Now you can challenge friends for high scores on Facebook Messenger\u2019s new Instant Games, like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Words With Friends Frenzy. Available right from your message threads, they load in seconds since they\u2019re built on the <strong>HTML5<\/strong> mobile web standard, rather than having to be downloaded like clunky native apps.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Facebook hopes some friendly competition will get you to spend even more time in Messenger. You compete asynchronously via high scores instead of directly at the same time, so it\u2019s convenient to try your luck any time. And eventually, Instant Games could earn Facebook ad dollars from developers promoting their games, or a cut of payments, though there are no in-game purchases allowed yet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Instant Games launches today in 30 countries including the U.S., with 17 games<\/strong> from classic developers like Bandai Namco, Konami, and Taito as well as newer studios like Zynga and King. Instant Games are available on newer iOS and Android devices, and can be found by hitting the game controller icon in your Facebook Messenger threads next to the photos and stickers buttons. You can also play across platforms from Facebook on desktop thanks to a little overlaid phone screen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Which games should you try first? Check out our review list, \u201cThe best Facebook Messenger games to play right now\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Hands-On: Dicey Controls, But Frictionless And Addicting<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">I played all 17 of the games, and was impressed by how they quickly load in three to ten seconds considering the high quality graphics and gameplay, as well as how Messenger automatically shares high scores and leaderboards so its easy to challenge people. Since most of the games are simple to pick up and take around 30 seconds to play a full round, anyone can slot them into their day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WKQYMCLitV0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Facebook\u2019s head of Messenger David Marcus tells me \u201cSocial gaming was big on desktop. [But on mobile] Everything has gotten social slapped on as an after-thought.\u201d Facebook thinks games built or rebuilt for fast, asynchronous competition could unlock a new era of friendly play.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Facebook Gets Back To Gaming Via HTML5<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Facebook dominated social gaming around 2008 after its desktop app platform proved more popular for playing around than for utilities. It earned a peak of a quarter-billion dollars per quarter on its 30% tax on in-game purchases, and their addictive and viral nature helped Facebook grow its user count and engagement. Today, 15% of time on Facebook.com is still spent playing games, though payments revenue has declined to $196 million in the latest quarter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">As users shifted to mobile, Facebook found itself shut out of gaming. Only iOS and Android could run native app stores, so they were who earned the taxes on in-game payments. Facebook desperately tried to build an HTML5 game platform called Project Spartan in 2011, but it flopped because the mobile web standard wasn\u2019t powerful enough to build games that could compete with flashy, downloadable native apps.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Over time, though, developers have figured out how to squeeze better graphics and responsive gameplay out of HTML5. You won\u2019t be playing 3D epics like Infinity Blade on Messenger, but 80s arcade classics, simple puzzlers, and retro games like Flappy Bird would work just fine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Facebook actually tested the potential for Messenger games by building its own. Its basketball shoot-out game was played 1.2 billion times, much more than the company expected. It knew people would play if Messenger gave them games. And chat apps like Line and KakaoTalk had already pioneered the idea of chat game platform.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Earlier this month, The Information reported Facebook was building an Instant Games platform, and we advanced the story with news about how the games would work and that the Candy Crush-maker King was building for the platform.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16110\" src=\"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/instant-games.png\" alt=\"Instant Games\" width=\"680\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/instant-games.png 680w, https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/instant-games-300x74.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Though HTML5 games built inside Messenger platforms might not be as graphically powerful, they\u2019re almost as engaging. A study by gaming network Gamee found that, on average, users played chat games 34 times per day for a total of 21 minutes over 2 sessions per day, while they played native app games 43 times for 33 minutes over 2.5 sessions per day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Combine that level of chat game engagement with the lack of friction to get started, and there\u2019s a big audience waiting for Messenger\u2019s Instant Games.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">It\u2019s all part of Facebook\u2019s two-pronged new approach to gaming. On mobile, there\u2019s Messenger Instant Games. And on desktop, the new Facebook Gameroom downloadable desktop client is a cheap, casual, social alternative to the expensive, hardcore desktop game platform Steam.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Instant Gaming<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The biggest draw of Instant Games is how quick you can start playing. You tap the game controller icon in one of your message threads, choose a game from the list, it loads in seconds, you play a short round, and your high score gets automatically posted to the private or group chat thread.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16109\" src=\"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/games-two.png\" alt=\"Games Two\" width=\"680\" height=\"319\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/games-two.png 680w, https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/games-two-300x141.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Instant Gaming<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The biggest draw of Instant Games is how quick you can start playing. You tap the game controller icon in one of your message threads, choose a game from the list, it loads in seconds, you play a short round, and your high score gets automatically posted to the private or group chat thread.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Here\u2019s a list of the launch titles with a short description of each, ranked roughly in order of quality from best to worst:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Galaga (Bandai Namco) \u2013 Classic arcade vertical space ship shooter, rebuilt so you only get one life for short sessions<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Space Invaders (Taito) \u2013 Classic arcade space shooter<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> EverWing (Blackstorm) \u2013 1942-style vertical scrolling space ship shooter with impressive graphics and speed<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Endless Lake (Spilgames) \u2013 Gorgeous Temple Run meets Monument Valley runner game with funky art<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Arkanoid (Taito) \u2013 Classic arcade brick-breaking paddle game with decent mobile controls<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Words With Friends Frenzy (Zynga) \u2013 Rapid-fire Scrabble game that takes some practice<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Hex FRVR (FRVR) \u2013 Tetris meets Candy Crush-style puzzler where you form lines until you\u2019re out of moves<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Pac-Man (Bandai Namco): Classic arcade game but with poor mobile swipe controls so you miss tunnels and die<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Shuffle Cats Mini (King) \u2013 Card-flicking shooting gallery game that utilizes touch for speed and direction<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Wordalot (MAG Interactive) \u2013 Scrabble meets crossword puzzle timed competition, fun and different though frustrating<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> ZooKeeper (Kiteretsu) \u2013 Timed Candy Crush with cute 8-bit graphics but too long of game sessions<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Track &amp; Field 100M (Konami) \u2013 Alternating button mashing speed trial with computer opponents who are too fast<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Brick Pop (Gamee) \u2013 Dots-style puzzle game that feels too random<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Bust-A-Move Blitz (Taito \/ Blackstorm) \u2013 Bubble-matching puzzle shooter that feels too slow<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> 2020 Connect (Softgames) \u2013 Candy Crush meets Threes puzzler that feels too stodgy for Messenger<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Templar 2048 (Vonvon) \u2013 Threes-style timed matching puzzle that\u2019s a bit confusing<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> The Tribez: Puzzle Rush (Game Insight) \u2013 Candy Crush Clone with lame dinosaur theme<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">For now, the platform is in closed beta, but developers can apply to build Instant Games here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Here\u2019s the full list of countries where Instant Games will be available today: Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Great Britain, Canada, United States, Japan, Netherlands, Australia, Austria, Latvia, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, New Zealand, France, Singapore, Finland, Hong Kong, Russian Federation, Estonia, Taiwan, Slovenia, Puerto Rico, Cyprus, Israel, Lithuania, Spain, and Italy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Facebook\u2019s Next Developer Ecosystem<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">To keep developers building for it, Facebook will need to eventually offer them ways to make money. Right now, games don\u2019t feature ads and don\u2019t allow in-game payments. That means developers might lose money if they build for and send traffic to Instant Games instead of their own native apps where they can charge or show ads at their own discretion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">news-feed-ios-copyHowever, Marcus tells me \u201cOver time we\u2019ll find ways for game developers to monetize. That\u2019s our commitment to them in the new year.\u201d For now, though, there\u2019s plenty of virality and traction to grab since playing a game in a thread automatically challenges your chat mates, and you can share games you enjoy as News Feed posts. Developers might strive to build an audience now and monetize it later.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Compared to platforms like the iMessage game store, which is buried and features lackluster games, Facebook Messenger\u2019s offering is compelling. And unlike KakaoTalk, where you have to download games as separate native apps and just use the chat platform for login and competing, Messenger\u2019s Instant Games feel like a natural part of the communication experience. [Update: Telegram offers HTML5 games, but the experience is only available inside chatbots and takes some work to dig out.]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Related Articles<\/span><\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> The best Facebook Messenger games to play right now<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"> Facebook will have to avoid the spam apocalypse that soured many users on its old desktop social games. Developers like Zynga exploited viral communication channels to get players to pester friends for help. Facebook product manager Andrea Vaccari tells me Facebook has learned from that mistake. \u201cRight now all in-game communication is controlled by us\u201d, he says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">If Facebook can use its 1 billion-user reach to lure top developers and put games just two clicks away, it might have found something to add to Messenger that\u2019s almost as addicting as talking with friends.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The classics like Galaga and Space Invaders are the best on the platform, with new titles like EverWing and Endless Lake showing innovative ways to make games fun and quick.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\">source: https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2016\/11\/29\/messenger-instant-games\/<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/facebook-messenger-launches-instant-games.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bored while you wait for someone to text back? Now you can challenge friends for high scores on Facebook Messenger\u2019s new Instant Games, like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Words With Friends Frenzy. Available right from your message threads, they load in seconds since they\u2019re built on the HTML5 mobile web [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[10124,10125,10126],"class_list":["post-16108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-facebook-messenger-launch-instant-games","tag-facebook-messenger-launched-games-for-instant-chat","tag-facebook-to-launch-instant-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}