Meta closing down Facebook Gaming iOS app in October
The iOS app for Facebook Gaming will stop working on October 28, 2022, although the streaming service will remain live on the web.
Facebook Gaming is a game streamer service similar to Twitch, and it was launched in 2018. Near start of the COVID pandemic, in April 2020 the company launched an app for the service after it rode a wave of increasing popularity for two years.
It was successful enough to reap the benefits of Microsoft closing down Mixer. However, in a time where internet use as a whole is decreasing, Facebook has made the decision to close not just the iOS app, but the Android app as well.
"We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of you for everything that you've done to build a thriving community for gamers and fans since this app first launched," Facebook said in a statement. "This was truly a community-led effort to bring new gaming features to Facebook."
The shut-down is not the first Twitch competitor that failed. As mentioned before, Microsoft closed Mixer in 2020, which was then subsumed into Facebook Gaming.
The shutdown is part of a recent shift away from viewing video game streams online. As The Verge noted on Tuesday, total hours watched decreased by 8 percent in the second quarter of 2022. Facebook's hours were at the bottom of the heap against competitors YouTube and Twitch, falling from 803 million hours to 580 million in the second quarter of 2022.
Facebook says the web-based version will remain live.
Read on AppleInsider
Facebook Gaming is a game streamer service similar to Twitch, and it was launched in 2018. Near start of the COVID pandemic, in April 2020 the company launched an app for the service after it rode a wave of increasing popularity for two years.
It was successful enough to reap the benefits of Microsoft closing down Mixer. However, in a time where internet use as a whole is decreasing, Facebook has made the decision to close not just the iOS app, but the Android app as well.
-- Gothalion (@Gothalion)
"We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of you for everything that you've done to build a thriving community for gamers and fans since this app first launched," Facebook said in a statement. "This was truly a community-led effort to bring new gaming features to Facebook."
The shut-down is not the first Twitch competitor that failed. As mentioned before, Microsoft closed Mixer in 2020, which was then subsumed into Facebook Gaming.
The shutdown is part of a recent shift away from viewing video game streams online. As The Verge noted on Tuesday, total hours watched decreased by 8 percent in the second quarter of 2022. Facebook's hours were at the bottom of the heap against competitors YouTube and Twitch, falling from 803 million hours to 580 million in the second quarter of 2022.
Facebook says the web-based version will remain live.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
I did a search for this and found no reference to this. I’m interested in knowing more. Source?
Recent surveys show that people are spending less time daily on their devices now that shelter-in-place orders have been lifted and people are leaving their houses to return to a greater variety of activities, including many that don't involve being on the Internet.
If you compare average Internet usage today from ten years ago, yes, the usage went up. But if you compare average Internet usage today versus a year ago, the usage went down.
Gaming focused services like Steam have metrics that show how many people are playing on their platform, which titles, purchases, downloads, concurrent players, etc.
Of course a company like Meta will know how much time is being spent using their services (Facebook, Instagram, Oculus Quest 2, etc.). That's what they do: track your activity so they can sell it to advertisers.
For Meta, it's not just how much time is being spent on their platforms but what percentage of total device usage is being spent on Meta platforms. If total Internet usage drops 10% but Meta platform usage drops 20%, that's a big problem for Meta. That means that people are spending more time elsewhere (YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, Discord, whatever) and Meta has lost marketshare.
If you look at hourly or daily graphs, you'd see peaks and valleys in the usage curves. The heaviest traffic days for app stores are December 25th and 26th in countries that observe the Christmas holiday because people are downloading new software for the gifts they've just received.
In a similar way there's heavy telephone traffic on New Year's Day and it's harder to get a restaurant reservation for Valentine's Day dinner or Mother's Day brunch.
From an app activity tracking standpoint, it's probably easier for Meta programmers to have fewer data sources (various Meta apps) versus one app that tracks everything you do with their platform.
That wording relates to videos being watched, not "internet use as a whole" - sloppy writing by AI.