Facebook working on a downloadable desktop gaming platform

Facebook was once known not only for social networking but also for casual gaming- remember Candy crush, Farmville, or Criminal Case- which was also one of the revenue channels for Facebook and developers. But soon, gaming took a big dive into the mobile world and the games’ networking disappeared from the platform.

However, as per the latest reports, Facebook is getting back into gaming.

On the company’s developers blog, Facebook formally announced that it’s working with game engine Unity to build a dedicated, downloadable desktop gaming platform, plus it’s broadening the Facebook.com experience for gamers.

Unity will also integrate support for the Facebook platform, including an all-new PC gaming platform currently in development.

Jack King Choi, Product Marketing Manager at Facebook, further explains the partnership in a post, "Unity and Facebook are joining forces to build new functionality into Unity that streamlines the process for exporting and publishing games onto Facebook. This will allow Unity developers to quickly deliver their games to the more than 650 million players who enjoy playing Facebook-connected games every month — a massive and highly engaged gaming community that enabled Facebook to pay out over $2.5 billion to just web-game developers in 2015 alone."

The company is selecting a limited group of developers to receive immediate access to a closed-alpha build of the new export to Facebook functionality in Unity version 5.4. New developers will be on-boarded on an ongoing basis throughout the testing period.

Though Facebook is yet to provide details about what this gaming platform would actually do, TechCrunch has provided some valuable insights. Following is their report:

• It will run on different types of PCs, not just Windows like the Games Arcade test
• The desktop platform provides a distraction-free gaming environment uncluttered by other Facebook features like the News Feed
• The platform will support the traditional casual Facebook games, mobile games ported from iOS and Android, and Unity says it will likely support more “immersive” hardcore games like you typically see on Steam or consoles, as there're no plans for a limit on genres or specs right now
• It will offer discoverability so gamers can find titles to play
• Facebook will provide a revenue split for game publishers, though it’s unclear if it will deviate from the industry standard 30 percent it’s used in the past

If you are interested, you can " target="_blank">apply here by August 31, 2016, to request immediate access and begin testing the alpha build of the new export to Facebook functionality in the Unity Editor.