The Facebook Gaming App has finally released on iOS, though the company has announced that the news comes with a major caveat that users might not have been expecting. The gaming app can only be used for live streaming, but not for any mini-games.
In an eight-part series of tweets, Facebook Gaming explained how the news was still a victory for creators and their fans who can now use their iOS devices to stream their favorite content. Unfortunately, the compromise was that “after months of submissions and repeated rejections, we’ve had to remove instant games entirely from the standalone app.”
Facebook Gaming pointed out that Apple rejected the app for so long based on App Store guideline 4.7, which claims that the Facebook Gaming app would primarily be used to play games. This is not true, however, as “95% of the app activity on Android is from watching livestreams. We shared this stat with Apple, but no luck.”
For now, users do finally have a well-made, integrated option for watching their favorite streamers, while the timing of the news comes a mere day after Microsoft’s similar struggle in attempting to provide a standalone app for the use of the upcoming xCloud streaming service in September.
Facebook concluded by stating that it would continue to build its gaming platform, stating that, “playing games will always be part of Facebook Gaming whether Apple allows it in a standalone app or not.”
The entire situation is fascinating to consider as mobile gaming continues to grow in scope around the globe. On the one hand, it may seem ridiculous to prevent Apple users from accessing games on Facebook Gaming or Microsoft’s platforms, while on the other hand, doing so would undermine Apple’s own video gaming ecosystem, which is primarily fueled by the new Apple Arcade subscription service.
Ultimately, Apple is large enough and has so much consumer market share that there is no reason for it to give in to any streaming demands from Microsoft or Facebook Gaming. With that said, such a major restriction may turn future consumers away from Apple and towards Android, or at least those consumers who are eager to leverage the ever-growing streaming technology that sees constant improvement.
At that point, Apple, might change its policy, though it would not be surprising to see a consumer shift in the next few years towards a brand that is more gamer-friendly; and at that point, it might hardly make a difference.
Source: Twitter
