Casual games have an extraordinary wide appeal which progresses well beyond the core gaming demographic. Facebook users can spend hours enjoying titles like Farmville and discussing their progress with friends. Recently, Facebook decided to launch their own dedicated hub for casual gaming. The new software, called Gameroom allows Facebook users to access titles up to 200MB in size and chat in-game with other players. Not only that, the software has a community section and a workshop for custom mods which resembles Steam. This is an interesting move and it seems Facebook recognizes the popularity of casual titles on their service.
Even though the system today only supports smaller games, Facebook might want to extend this further and include more substantial indie games. Of course, it’s not a threat to Steam because Facebook as a company doesn’t appeal to many people and they’re probably going to focus on casual, big hitters which get a large number playing at the same time. Honestly, I don’t think this is a terrible idea and I’d be interested in trying out the client for myself. Saying that, I’ve never entertained the idea of playing casual games on PC and prefer a smartphone or tablet.
Are you excited by Facebook’s new gaming client?
