Facebook are in the process of rolling out the first ad platform that features full game demos.
First: this is a glorified ad platform, but it’s bundled with a call to action that is deeper than the Flash ads of the past and mobile game demos of the present. Trying out the actual game serving as the primary call to action is a remarkable feather in the cap of Facebook’s behemoth marketing empire. While the first version of this technology is limited to mobile games, I believe offering a console experience complete with touch-friendly controls for any type of game will soon be a reality.
Second: this is Facebook’s ad platform — a signal that users can be rest assured their interaction with these ads, as well as the targeting properties for them, will utilize all of Facebook’s intelligence about its logged-in users and its tracked unknown users. Zuck will certainly print more bucks at a premium for conversions utilizing this new platform.
Third: this is a cloud-based ad platform — meaning that all of the infrastructure nerds will geek out about an incredible use of resources and the cloud-gaming detractors will vocally denounce this as a second-rate gaming experience. Of course, they’ve already acknowledged the shortfalls of this particular approach and say that it will be intentionally careful with the program’s rollout over the next few months, with the next milestone for deployment dated for 2021.
Lastly: it’s bundled into a Facebook Gaming refresh. A platform that’s not only extremely vanilla in implementation, but unabashedly low-key and not meant to serve as a replacement for gaming or streaming or anything of consequence — unless you’re interested in an Oculus Quest 2, in that case, do I have some news for you.
