This summer, Facebook launched Fb.gg, its online gaming hub and Twitch competitor, designed to entice users and their fans to watch videos on Facebook instead of rival sites. The destination shows videos according to the users of streaming games and celebrities that follow, as well as the Pages and groups that they liked and other important suggestions on what to see. Now, Fb.gg is expanding to mobile devices with its launch on Android.
The new application, detected for the first time by Sensor Tower, arrived a few days ago and is currently in beta testing.
According to its description on Google Play, the application allows players and fans to discover a "universe of game content", connect with creators and join communities, and play instant games like Everwing, Words with Friends, Basketball FRVR and others.
[19659002] In the screenshots, you can see how the Fb.gg application allows users to touch the navigation buttons at the top to find players to see or see those they are already following, among other things. They can also participate in live conversations during the game with other spectators. Here, they can react to the transmission using the standard emoticon set of Like, Hearts, Haha and others.
Another section allows players to jump to simple and popular mobile games. These titles are among those who were early participants in other Facebook gaming efforts in the past, such as Instant Games on Facebook and Messenger.
Facebook has been trying to attract the player community for some time, to improve Compete against Amazon's Twitch and Google's YouTube. There is a large and growing market for the transmission and viewing of games, with young viewers tuning an average of more than 3 hours a week to watch, as TechCrunch pointed out.
Facebook's efforts to directly challenge Twitch and others began in earnest this year, with the release of their own version of the Twitch Partner Program. The pilot program of the Facebook game creator, as it is called, allows viewers to give advice to their favorite players. And with the arrival of Fb.gg in June, the virtual currency involved in those tips was referred to as Facebook stars, with each star equaling $ 0.01.
Facebook said that it takes a cut of the purchases of stars of the fans, that go from 5% to 30%, according to the size of the purchased package.
Facebook also recently began testing a monthly subscription option with game players, similar to what YouTube and Twitch offer.
Of Of course, to really compete with Twitch and YouTube, Facebook must also be mobile, especially because the next Messenger redesign will hide strange features, such as mobile games. That's where the Fb.gg application comes into play.
The Android version of the Fb.gg beta application was released on October 9 and already has more than 10,000 installations, according to Google Play.
"We recently started testing" an independent game application on Google Play that is based on the experience of fb . gg our fate on Facebook for people to find game content in one place, "a Facebook spokesman told TechCrunch." The application [19459009fb. gg It is currently in beta with a limited set of features and is available in the Philippines We are using the beta phase to get feedback from the gamer community and we will make a decision on whether we will extend it further based on that response, "they said.
Update, here are some screenshots, courtesy of Twitter User Mount Thigpen: