Facebook is launching a dedicated gaming app to take on Twitch and Youtube.
In its most decisive move into the video game business as people seek entertainment during the pandemic, Facebook introduces the Facebook Gaming mobile app. The app is designed largely for creating and watching live gameplay, a fast-growing online sector where Facebook is battling Amazon’s Twitch, Google’s YouTube and Microsoft’s Mixer services, per The New York Times.
According to The Verge, Facebook’s gaming app will largely curate and focus on the streaming community, although it will also highlight casual games that people might play online already, including Words with Friends. The app, which is set to be introduced on April 20th, will also reportedly only be available on Android devices at first. The company has plans to release the app for iOS devices once “Apple approves them.”
Facebook has invested in gaming for years, and has tried to build up its streaming community by partnering with different creators and hosting esports tournaments. Despite Facebook’s large user base — more than 2.5 billion people use Facebook every month — it still lags behind Twitch and YouTube (owned by Amazon and Google, respectively) when it comes to hours of gameplay watched.
With much of the world urged or ordered to stay home during the coronavirus outbreak, the $160 billion global games business is booming. Facebook originally intended to release the app in June but accelerated its plans as the quarantine’s scope became clear. Twitch and YouTube still dominate the industry. Twitch commanded 61 percent of hours watched in December 2019, with YouTube maintaining another 28 percent of the market.
