Facebook’s messenger games: A quest for its own app store

Things between the two giants precipitated as recently Facebook equipped its mobile game publishers with the ability to monetize the games through ads and online purchases. This provision struck Apple app store like lightning because it would encourage the gamers on Facebook messenger to have more control and choice. Since 80% of the mobile gamers use Facebook messenger, therefore, Apple App store sees it as a threat to its future business.

One of the reasons for increasing popularity of Facebook messenger app games is that they are “Instant Games”. These consume lesser resources since they need not be installed and are lighter for devices as compared to gaming apps.     

“TapResearch” gains the insight about the number of people playing online games. Facebook messenger app leads the race as compared to its counterparts by a great deal due to recent modifications in the messenger based gameplay. As per the survey of about 1000 gamers, the popular games identified by TapResearch are word games, puzzles, and action.

”Of the 62% of the FB users who have not played the messenger app game yet, blame lack of awareness for not playing,” says Micheal Sprague, VP of business development at TapResearch. This marks that its number will rise in the future as the information prevails among users. 

The cleft between Facebook and Apple dates back to 2010 when Facebook delayed its app for the newly launched iPad. Insider information reveals that Facebook was looking for a web-based app so that it could sneak out of Apple’s strict app store rules. A former lead developer at Facebook Jeff Verkoeyen wrote in his blog that the Facebook app for iPad was released about one and a half year later than the launch of iPad.

 “Project Spartan” was another attempt by Facebook to put its own app store on millions of IOS devices around the globe.  Facebook plans to use HTML5 front end for all its apps on existing Apple devices without the installation of flash.

Techcrunch breaks out that good about eighty developers are part of Project Spartan. Other software giants like Zynga is also working in collaboration with Facebook making sure it supports interactive games and credits.

Apple has always tried to maintain its supremacy in the apps industry by adopting stringent app store rules. The whole App store is under monitoring. Apps like “AppGratis” are identified and kicked off from the store for their mimicking what the app store itself does. Purchase and installation of apps within an app are discouraged by every app store as it would undermine the importance of app stores.

John Koetsier points out through his article in Forbes that both the companies may happen to reach a cold war here. According to statistics, 38% of mobile gamers have used Facebook’s messenger app for gaming. This brewing conflict has to be monitored by the whole app development industry for their protection and safety of business.

The duel between Apple and Facebook has opened the new arena for game developers, particularly for the new entrants. Now there is no restriction to follow a single popular platform for game development. For the App developers, Facebook messenger app games may become the token of success. The need of time is to polish skills in this new arena as well.