Mobile games land on Facebook Messenger

The social network seeks to boost its app with games such as Pac-Man or Space Invaders

   Instant Game is the recreational bet of Facebook to promote your Messenger app among users. This new platform allows the direct game from the application or in the own account in the social network.

Launched on Tuesday in some 30 countries with 17 titles, for now, including some classics such as "Pac-Man" and "Space Invaders", and also more recent creations such as "Words with Friends" (Zynga) or "Shuffle Cats Mini" "

  The American group has long attracted fans of so-called "social" games, with very popular titles such as "FarmVille" or "MafiaWars", but this time it focuses mainly on those who play from their smartphones.

"It's the first time that Facebook puts games directly on mobile devices," Leo Olebe, head of Facebook of global associations with the games, told AFP, adding that they expect "people to interact with Instant Games through Messenger. , especially at the beginning. "

Faced with the impossibility of indefinitely increasing revenues from mobile advertising, Facebook must find sources of growth. Therefore, the firm multiplied the services incorporated into Messenger, which has more than one billion members.

However, according to Olebe, it is the first time that a true gaming platform is integrated into a mobile messaging application.

The group resumed a bit the same principle as "Instant Articles", which allows journalistic articles to be loaded more quickly and hosted directly on Facebook instead of publishing a link that forwards readers to the websites of newspapers.

"Instant Games" promises that the user can play or challenge their friends "quickly and easily" directly from a conversation in Messenger or on your wall, without having to download or previously install an application.