Facebook wants to morph into a live game streaming platform; here’s why

More than 380 million people play games and 200 million watch other people play video games every month on Facebook. If you combine these numbers, it’s more users than the European Union population. This is exactly the reason why Facebook wants to change its social media application into a direct streaming game platform, a new approach that will not only bring new users but also help create the largest gaming community on the planet.

“[Gaming] This is the core area by itself. It’s not like a violation of entertainment strategies. It meets the case of use of entertainment but if you see it from a broader perspective, fundamental games have become a unique use case,” Manish Chopra, Director and Head Partnership, Facebook India told IndianExpress.com in front of the company’s first game event in Indonesia, which began on Tuesday.

Chopra said there had been a greater encouragement from Facebook in recent years to understand how users play games and what the creators expected from social media giants. “Facebook is a very natural and very logical extension for gamers to gather and create these communities,” he said. The book does not compete with the console maker or PC gaming in general. Instead, he wants casual gamers to play games without downloading them and watching other people play too. It’s like watching TV sports or direct reality, except this is a video game. Watch someone plays your favorite video game while adding humor and crack jokes is just a form of other entertainment.

“Many Facebook use is the use of serendiids … You usually don’t open Facebook for a very specific purpose,” he said, adding that playing games was also found by chance. For Chopra, the priority is to increase the watch time and the amount of content offered with Facebook gaming.

“Gaming has become more broad-based and unlimited in AAA games played by a small group of gamers,” Chopra emphasizes why Facebook gaming appeals to the spectrum of new users who see video games as a form of interactive entertainment and less hardcore.

But Facebook’s focus is greater to change its social application into a streaming platform video game has something to do with India. With more than 434 million Facebook users in India alone, social media giants see the opportunity to increase the number of new users using the platform through Facebook games. In fact, more than 234 million gameplay sessions have been recorded on Facebook from India during July and August this year, making this country the third largest market in the gameplay session. It also helps that almost all this by young users. While Facebook sees new users jumping to Facebook to play and watch other play games in India, Chopra adds that from now on focus will use more platforms to use the platform making money. “Facebook provides the ability to gaming ribbons to be able to utilize all the tools and approaches we have, and help them monetize streaming and the efforts they put into the content of the game they make.”

Facebook allows creators to get money by collecting stars, virtual currencies that can be used by fans to tip their favorite creators. The idea is simple: Creator can upload pre-edit videos and monitor their content through star collection. Creator who enrolled for level up programs can access Facebook stars and fan subscriptions. Meanwhile, the creator of gaming partner has access to direct ads.And Facebook does something else to take advantage of more creators to use the platform to broadcast them playing games in India. Not only the top names, Facebook will pursue regional creators who speak Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Punjabi. According to Facebook’s own data, Publik Mobile, Garena Free Fire, Grand Theft Auto, Pubg: BattleGrounds and Mobile Legends are the most strategic games between July and August in India. Facebook also offers ad-free cellular apps that offer similar experiences with the Gaming tab on the Facebook website, which allows users to broadcast themselves or watch streamer games play instead. The aggressive movement into the game room, especially in India, shows there is room for growth in live video broadcasts even though there is a competition from Twitch Amazon and Google Google. “The market grows on a large scale, where there is more than enough growth for everyone,” Chopra said when asked about competition from Twitch and YouTube, said the two biggest names in the video game Streaming Live. While Facebook has it a strong user base in India, Chopra said the final goal was to make gaming ecosystems that not only cover the creator but also game developers and publishers. “What we see is the trend of the game so secular so it takes time to make. The type of ecosystem, and create time to have the right partner and creator sets that come to the ship,” he said. “We are truly committed to building a gaming community in India.”

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