While Facebook is now associated with very casual gaming, hooking up with an established serious player in the field means we’re likely to see the social network appealing more to hardcore gamers.
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“Developers channel their talent and passion into creating awesome games, but development is only part of the challenge”, said Elliot Solomon, Vice President, Business Development, Unity Technologies.
Facebook and game engine company Unity have announced a partnership that will let developers easily port their Unity games onto the social network, including a Facebook desktop gaming platform that’s now in development. Facebook says it paid out over $2.5 billion to web-game devs past year alone, and that there are over 650 million players on its gaming network.
650 million users play Facebook-connected games every month.
The project is now in closed alpha. “It’s great to be working with them to help developers find new audiences for the games they pour their hearts into”. Developers have until August 31st to apply for a closed alpha of the export tool, which will be integrated directly into the Unity Editor.
In theory, this could power the same types of games as those on Steam or GOG, which require much more powerful PC’s than something like Candy Crush.
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Facebook’s new PC gaming platform will focus on web game development, but its Unity integration may also result in standalone titles being published to the platform. Unity’s powerful graphics engine and full-featured editor serve as the foundation to develop attractive games or apps and easily bring them to multiple platforms: mobile devices, home entertainment systems, personal computers, and embedded systems.
