Ever get frustrated that you can’t go on social media and play video games at the same time (what a weird, weird world we live in that that’s a real issue for a lot of people)? Don’t worry, because Facebook has you covered.
Facebook Live is working on a new partnership program to help cater to professional video-game streams, announced at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on March 19.
The social media site has had similar announcements before, having introduced a tip-jar for gamers in the past couple of months, as they want to compete with Twitch and YouTube in video-game live streaming. This specific announcement, however, introduces a brand new software-development kit that allows developers to directly add a Facebook live stream into PC games.
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Once this feature is added, the game can be streamed directly to a Facebook page with no additional hardware needed. It’s that easy, folks.
Another new feature includes the opportunity for viewers to win free in-game rewards, just for regularly tuning in to their favorite developer.
“Rewards help to increase community interaction as players watch together and offer an incentive to jump back into the games they love,” software engineer Alex Hopmann said via Ad Week. “Hi-Rez Studios, developer of Paladins, has been testing rewards during Paladins Global Series and has seen increased engagement and very positive feedback.”
The other notable benefit in regards to Facebook and live-streaming comes from the analytics side of things — Facebook allows developers to see analytics and create app events, thus helping them understand their audience’s taste and preferences in a better way.
“Over time, the content and activity that game communities organically create on Facebook will form a unique gamer graph,” Hopmann said, “allowing PC devs to better deliver experiences players want.”
These new changes are said to launch in the next couple of weeks.
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