Facebook just entered the gaming-streaming game as a new challenger—the social media behemoth just launched a new platform called Fb.gg to presumably compete with Twitch which largely dominates that industry. For those of you who didn’t grow up with online video games, by the way, gg stands for “good game,” with the acronym being short enough to casually congratulate your opponents without expending too much effort.
According to The Daily Dot, Fb.gg will let users follow and discover streamers within Facebook’s Live video feature. This is a substantial change from the status quo, which has Facebook users encounter videos or streams on their News Feeds, and in Pages or Groups they’re members of. Fb.gg practically consolidates whoever you follow (or might want to follow) into one centralized section of the domain. Here, you can watch live streams or sessions you might’ve missed.
As an incentive for popular streamers (who might largely spend their time on Twitch) to shift toward Fb.gg, the company is appealing to their bottom line—views, and hence, money. If you’re a big enough personality with a substantial following, Facebook will give you a noticeable placement on the Fb.gg page and thereby move a certain amount of traffic your way—which is a win-win for both parties. As is the case for any newcomer to a monumentally established sector like the video-game streaming arena, Facebook will have quite the challenge on its hands. However, with 2.2 billion users worldwide, if the company could even garner a few percent of the total streaming population to use its services, rather than its well-known competitors, it’d make rational business sense in the long run.
Additionally, Facebook announced the Level Up and Facebook Stars programs, which are aimed at up-and-comers who may need a helping hand at establishing a following, and monetizing popular videos for those who already have one. Level Up will also let you get early access to certain features on the site—think of it as a Premium Pass found in all kinds of apps, websites, and services.
As you may have guessed, Fb.gg is currently awash with Fortnite streams—and with a breakout hit as big as that record-breaking, mainstream-consciousness-entering game, who would expect otherwise? There are a few thousand people currently streaming the game, with hundreds of thousands tuning in to watch. That’s notable because it seems Facebook has already conquered Twitch, in that particular niche—as Twitch only has about half of those views, for that game, on its own site, right now. How quickly the tables turn.
As it stands, the social media giant claims its new service is still in the “experimental phase,” with new features being tested and inevitably being implemented along the way. The platform is young, and will require some time for casual users to even become aware of. Soon enough, however, like most other things Facebook gets its hands on—it’ll attract a massive following, and become just another obvious use-case for the site.
