In light of the success of its Instant Games platform, Facebook is now bringing Instant Games to Gaming Groups and Facebook Lite – the “diet version” of its platform for Android devices.
Facebook says that daily Instant Games players have increased 25 per cent over the summer, and sessions played have increased by 13 per cent, with more than 1.7 billion game sessions played in the last month alone. Those stats attest to the success that Instant Games have become for Facebook, which has now decided to bring the platform to new places. Instant Games will soon be available in Gaming Groups and on its Facebook Lite application for older Android devices and areas with bad access to data.
As Olivier Bouan, Product Manager at Facebook, explains, there are currently over 90 million people actively participating in over 270,000 Groups dedicated to gaming on Facebook so “Instant Games provides a natural way for people in groups to easily play together and deepen engagement over shared interests”. The rollout of Instant Games to game-centric Facebook Groups has begun, while Groups that are not within the gaming category can opt-in to get the feature. Gameplay will take place within the Group itself.
Instant Games will now also be available through the Facebook Lite app’s “More” menu, and it’s important to note that since downloads are not necessary – even those with low-bandwidth connections to play. As Bouan explained, “we’re continuing to work hard at making Instant Games a better experience for Facebook Lite users by improving in-thread updates, as well.”
Facebook is continuing to invest in Instant Games and on improving both the discoverability and the experience of its Games bookmark and notifications “to support the player experience.” Finally, Facebook has now added support for ads-based monetisation to its app on iOS and Android. It had previously introduced in-application purchases for Android and Facebook.com in May.
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