Facebook officially launches Gameroom, a casual rival to Steam

Facebook has officially launched Gameroom, a dedicated native Windows app for playing all of the various games available on Facebook. Facebook Gameroom is available now as a download for those using Windows 7 or newer.

Facebook previously announced that it was working on a game publishing platform as part of a partnership with Unity back in August. At the time, Facebook said that the partnership would bring support for publishing to Facebook's "PC gaming platform" (now Gameroom) through the Unity game development platform, allowing developers to easily bring their games to the millions that play Facebook games each month.

While Facebook Gameroom is certainly not likely to appeal to more hardcore gamers who are already invested in publishing platforms like Steam, it does present an interesting proposition for those who already enjoy Facebook's web-based games. The experience offered by Gameroom serves up the various casual titles offered through Facebook without the always-looming distraction of the newsfeed — something that's likely to keep people playing longer.

Will you be checking out Facebook Gameroom? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Download Facebook Gamefroom

Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl

25 Comments
  • Facebook exclusive: FarmVille
  • So is this an app available on Windows Store?
  • Nope. It's to be downloaded via a browser. I was just saying, it would be really nice if they went via the store way.
  • All this is, is a web broswer. It just plays Facebook games and loads the URL link inside of this "program." It's a web wrapper pretty much. That alone won't change anything nor will it even make Facebook gamers download it to use it. I hope that we will see soon how the Unity Partnership will work out as that might be something or maybe not. Over all this isn't anything special right now. You can do the exact samething from Facebook's website.
  • "All this is, is a web broswer". It's almost as if all Facebook is is a website...
  • Hehe, I laughed.
  • If they are so interested in "releasing apps" then why not embrace UWP ?! Like really start using it ?!!!?
    .
    Windows 10 is an awesome platform to begin with. Just looking at Steam usage stats will let anyone know why Win10 is a cool platform for gaming.
  • A browser without the advantage of an adblocker, the amount of adverts in this program is ridiculous to the point of making it unusable
  • It'd be nice if Facebook fixed their Facebook app for W10M.
  • Yeah, really !!
  • Does it have cityville???
  • This would be great if Facebook would also add Xbox gaming to it and add "Live" to the WP10 app.... C'mon Facebook & Microsoft, lets make it happen!
  • Nobody is going to use this garbage.
  • RIP Gene Wilder. Who associated you with this crap?
  • What? This article (nor the Service/App) mentions nothing about Gene Wilder. There's 1 tiny stock image of a game based on the movie he did, the link is tenous at best.
  • The photo of the app in the article clearly shows "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Slots". Yuck. To be clear I meant the Willy Wonka game is crap, not the WC article.
  • *EDIT* Ah, thanks for the clarification, nothing to see here!
  • Now in one place all those bad games that post notices to annoy your friends. A sad kitten was found.
  • I really see this as no competition for Steam. Not in the same ballpark at all to Steam, Origin and GOG. However, game services like Big Fish Games might want to keep a close eye on this.
  • What's gog?
  • Good Old Games, www.gog.com
  • Game service and store created by CD Projekt. (developers of The Witcher series.) They specialize in DRM-free games. You buy it, you own it.
  • I tried this but it contains a ridiculous amount of advertising, including video ads between moves on some games. Didn't stay installed for long.
  • Another EA Origin?
  • You can't beat steam sorry