Facebook Messenger Finally Has Games, Doodle Draw Will Help Users Show Off Drawing Skills
Let the games begin!
Facebook has just released the first game on its Messenger platform, the Doodle Draw for Messenger. The app is eerily similar to Draw Something, a popular game that everyone seemed to be playing way back in 2012.
Coincidentally, that game was also eerily similar to another popular game, Pictionary, only in virtual form.
Facebook Messenger gets Its first game, Doodle Draw http://t.co/rrzwX5cX5j pic.twitter.com/Cvo21EhN0j
— NDTV (@ndtv) June 11, 2015
Doodle Draw operates the same way the other two games do. A user will draw something while the other has to guess what it was.
It’s an ideal game for Facebook as it would easily keep users engaged with the app as they try to outwit their opponents and impress them with hitherto unknown drawing skills.
It’s an interesting development as previous Messenger complementary apps were limited to those that just allowed users to send photos, videos, gifs and memes to friends.
This would hopefully translate to a win-win situation for the social media giant as the longer a user stays on the app the more he or she will be on Facebook’s platforms which would then lead to higher ad revenues.
Well, that’s the idea anyway.
However, Josh Constine, TechCrunch’s Senior Writer has pointed out that the app, and other games that would follow it, could pave the way for Messenger to become a hotbed for spam. The writer sagely compared it to the way Farmville and other Zynga games inundated the news feed of millions of users with friend requests and game posts.
Facebook already took steps to address that problem but the risk of that history repeating itself on Messenger remains.
Doodle Draw can be a good way to see if Messenger Games can be relevant and fun without resorting to spammy and coercive tactics.
The appearance of gaming apps on Messenger is a logical progression and one that Facebook was gearing for.
Prior to Facebook launching Messenger, the company has already acknowledged that it would eventually look into how the platform can be expanded to include games and other utilities.
Facebook wants to take its Messenger service past what rival apps like Snapchat and WeChat can do. The company wants the platform to evolve until it can stand on its own and go beyond traditional emailing and chatting.
To that end, the company has been very open to developers who want to try out new ways for people to express themselves and connect to the world.
Mark Zuckerberg tried to explain that goal during the company’s yearly developer conference where he admitted that Messenger is “one of the fastest growing and most important members” of the Facebook family.
“Moving from a single service to a family of apps is the biggest shift we’ve made in our strategy in helping connect people,” he explained.
[Image via mobiflip.de]
