Facebook to take on Steam with their own PC Gaming storefront.

cageymaru

cageymaru

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R.I.P. Valve. (Just said that to be dramatic.)

Facebook is about to take on gaming's 800-pound gorilla.
Facebook is about to take on gaming's 800-pound gorilla

The company announced on August 18 that it's making an "all-new PC gaming platform." A Facebook rep confirmed to Business Insider that the "platform" in question is a standalone PC application — like Steam — for accessing PC games.

Presumably that will include a storefront, some form of chat/friends list, and maybe even game broadcasting. Not only is this stuff standard at this point (even on game consoles), but it's all stuff that Facebook already has: Messenger and Live solve the latter two needs, and Facebook continues to operate a digital storefront on the web.

What our new overlord's storefront may look like.
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what incentive would there be for buying a game on Facebook over Steam?...none
 
Yeah I don't understand why anyone in their right mind would use a Facebook storefront as opposed to............anything else
 
This will be a hit with the super casual gamers that grew up on Farmville.

To everyone else, it's a joke.
 
Does this function on the currency of social justice? Can I pay with my life details or my friends?
 
I'm gonna be pissed when a game I want to play is exclusive to this bullshit. Ubisoft is a prime example.
 
*pokes with a loooong stick* What the hell is this?

Yeah... No thanks.
 
relapse808 said:
A facebook store for PC games. They will never make it on my system.
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For real, talk about DRM, I bet they will load all sorts of spyware and information tracking software inside their exe's. Pass.
 
All games you play will use your real name and be linked to your FB account. Now all your IRL friends will know you're actually a racist troll.
 
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TheToE! said:
I'm gonna be pissed when a game I want to play is exclusive to this bullshit. Ubisoft is a prime example.
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I'm almost certain you mean it a different way, but regardless, I doubt Ubisoft will ever go exclusive to this.
 
Shit I wonder how many embedded ads and "recommended friends" you'll have to click through to get to the games page.
 
This is doomed to fail like GFWL and Windows Store. Might work for awhile because Facebook sheep are dupes.
 
dark_reign said:
This is doomed to fail like GFWL and Windows Store. Might work for awhile because Facebook sheep are dupes.
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The Windows Store is not going away, deal with it. :) Shame that your opinion of everything non Steam is clouding up your vision. ;)
 
ManofGod said:
The Windows Store is not going away, deal with it. :) Shame that your opinion of everything non Steam is clouding up your vision. ;)
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Just because it isn't going away does not mean it isn't a failure...
 
Don't have a facebook account and never will. Kind of like how Occulus died for me as a VR option the second Facebook bought it, this store will get no money from me. They couldn't even get me to sign up for the facebook store if they gave away everything they offered in the store for free.
 
Too entrenched in Steam and GoG to even consider going for another store. Nothing I can see Facebook offering that others are not, barring webpage games...
 
ManofGod said:
The Windows Store is not going away, deal with it. :) Shame that your opinion of everything non Steam is clouding up your vision. ;)
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For PC gaming it is. Microsoft ignored it for years thanks to Xbox. Then they made a sad attempt to compete with Steam and years later they think it will work with Windows Store. Quantum Break coming to Steam sounds like they're giving up on it.

More competition is good. But they're not smart at marketing PC games on their own platform and they don't understand PC gamers.
 
On the one hand it would be more competition and isn't backed by one of the major(greedy) publishers, on the other hand it's facebook. Yeah, I think the cons far outweigh the pros.
 
I think it's a case of 'too little, too late'.

Origin and Uplay are used by their respective publishers, which is understandable from a financial perspective.

Steam used to be solely valve before it moved onto a distribution platform, GoG is basically CDPR's Witcher series and a platform for truly good old games.

All of the above have some selling points (perhaps except Origin and Uplay, depending on how you look at it).

Facebook's version is probably aiming solely on its userbase, those who are already using other platforms (such as myself) won't switch unless they do something miraculous (like somehow convincing Microsoft to sell its Halo series on that platform).

They'll probably do well on its userbase, otherwise, nope...
 
I will install Origin for Battlefield but I will not install something by Facebook to play a game when I already use Steam.
 
So now they want all your pc information also. I'm never going to use it.
 
Ebernanut said:
On the one hand it would be more competition and isn't backed by one of the major(greedy) publishers, on the other hand it's facebook. Yeah, I think the cons far outweigh the pros.
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They're a publicly traded company so its their job now to be greedy af. I can just imagine a full screen Kohls or Target ad everytime I click to launch a game. Maybe not right away, but it would happen.
I see it as a waste of time for them, but who knows some Farmville and Candy Crush players could convert.
 
alienate said:
They're a publicly traded company so its their job now to be greedy af. <snip>
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That was kind of my point, I'd love some competition for Steam that isn't owned by one of the major publishers but I don't see Facebook being any better. I think that they'd try to make money with data mining but you might be right about unrelated(yet likely targeted) ads. I also wouldn't be surprised if they used peoples facebook page to push whatever games they've been playing/looking at to their friends.
 
While it sounds odd and far fetched as a success they do have a lot of potential behind it with data mining, connections with family and friends and such. Steams store is a mess and Valve as a whole doesn't seem to know what they want to be anymore so everything they have is sort of mediocre at the moment. If Facebook is serious, I hope they do a good enough job to make the other's improve their systems and stop isolating games forever on one store. While I may prefer steams integration overall they have a lot of stuff to easily improve if they would get their head out of the sand.
 
polonyc2 said:
what incentive would there be for buying a game on Facebook over Steam?...none
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Price ? That's the only thing I imagine they'll have, and since they have over $5 Billion in cash on hand, they can easily sell games at a significant loss to gain market share. Expect their debut to include massive sales.
 
Funny thing about it is that they may very well do ok with it, given the number of people on Facebook playing Farmville/candy crush/browser type games.
 
At this point I already have a bunch of storefronts with like 1 game on them (Origin, Battle.net, GOG, Windows Store, Uplay, etc.) and most of them I just setup to run via Steam anyway.
If they're able to price things better than the competition - GREAT. If not, I don't need another store account just for the sake of a random exclusive.
 
termite said:
Funny thing about it is that they may very well do ok with it, given the number of people on Facebook playing Farmville/candy crush/browser type games.
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The question then becomes, if this service is directed at people who use facebook, would many be really interested?

I mean, how many facebook users have a computer that is capable of playing even modest games?
 
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