Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is shuttering its Facebook Gaming app launched two years ago, due to its failure to catch up in an industry dominated by Twitch.
The game, which lets users watch and play video games on-demand, will no longer work or be available to download starting on October 28th, 2022, Facebook said in a notice sent to users.
“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,” the company said in an update on the Facebook Gaming app.
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“This was truly a community-led effort to bring new gaming features to Facebook,” it added.
“Despite this news, our mission to connect players, fans and creators with the games they love hasn’t changed, and you’ll still be able to find your games, streamers and groups when you visit Gaming in the Facebook app.”
Facebook Gaming was developed on Covid-19 wave that stoked gaming activities for many people forced to stay indoors through safety restrictions. The app was seen as a potential threat to Twitch in the beginning, but it gradually lost its smoke as economic activities resumed, following the lifting of restrictions.
The gaming market was largely dominated by Twitch and YouTube. Facebook Gaming, in a move to disrupt their dominance, added extra features including a creator program, and another feature to help build out its platform, such as the ability to co-stream.
Microsoft was another company to delve into gaming with Mixer, a streaming platform that it recruited Ninja and Shroud in multimillion dollar deal to propel, failed. Facebook bought Mixer in 2020.
Despite these efforts, Facebook Gaming failed to stand up to rivals Twitch and YouTube in the game streaming market. In the second quarter of 2022, Facebook Gaming accounted for only 7.9% of the market share for amount of hours watched, behind Twitch (76.7%) and YouTube (15.4%), according to a report from market research firm Streamlabs.
But delving into the gaming market is just one among many attempts that Facebook has made at divestment. Following its rebranding as Meta, the social media behemoth has been trying out many new ventures in markets dominated by others.
The company’s revenue took a major hit in January, wiping out more than $200 billion from its market value.
In February, Meta announced a major shift in its business that will encompass reels, metaverse among others. The shift to short-form video features is to wrestle market shares from the high-flying TikTok, which has won over a teeming number of young people globally.
“We took on headwinds in the near-term to align with important trends over the long term. And while video has historically been slower to monetize, we believe that over time short-form video is going to monetize more like feed or Stories than like Watch – so I’m optimistic that we’ll get to where we need to be with Reels too,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said.