Facebook games were once a core part of the Facebook experience. Millions of Facebook users played popular Facebook games like FarmVille, Texas HoldEm Poker, Mafia Wars and CityVille. However, in recent years Facebook has moved away from hosting games on its platform. So when exactly did Facebook stop having games?
The Rise of Facebook Games
Facebook first introduced a gaming platform in May 2007. This allowed developers to create games that could take advantage of Facebook’s social graph. The early games on Facebook were simple single-player apps like quizzes and horoscopes.
Things changed in June 2008 when Zynga launched one of the first major social games on Facebook called Texas HoldEm Poker. The game allowed players to invite friends to play and compete against each other. It quickly became one of the most popular games on Facebook.
In 2009, Zynga followed up this success by launching FarmVille on Facebook. FarmVille became a phenomenon and at its peak had over 80 million monthly active users. Other developers jumped on board and released their own popular social games like Restaurant City, Pet Society and Zoo World.
By 2010, over 200 million people were playing games on Facebook each month. Social games accounted for the majority of time spent on Facebook. They monetized through virtual goods, in-game ads and lead generation. The Facebook games industry was worth billions of dollars.
Decline of Facebook Games
While the early years were a boom time for Facebook gaming, the platform started going downhill in 2012 and beyond for several reasons:
- Shift to mobile – As Facebook usage moved to smartphones rather than the web, games became less prominent. Native mobile games from app stores overtook browser-based Facebook games.
- Changes to News Feed algorithm – In 2013, Facebook updated its News Feed ranking algorithm to prioritize posts from friends rather than pages. This caused reach and engagement for games to decline significantly.
- Less viral channels – Facebook removed prominent virality channels that games relied on for growth, such as apprequests, notifications and friends’ activity in ticker.
- Low developer revenue – Facebook made several policy changes around how apps can monetize, making it less lucrative for game developers.
- Competition – Game developers shifted focus to developing for iOS and Android instead of Facebook’s platform.
As a result of these factors, engagement with Facebook games slowed down drastically. Getting users was more difficult and expensive due to the reduced viral channels. Most developers stopped building games for Facebook, with Zynga shutting down many of its iconic titles like FarmVille.
Facebook Game Removal
By 2014, it was clear that the era of big social games on Facebook was coming to an end. Total monthly game users was down to around 100 million from a peak of over 200 million.
On April 30, 2014, Facebook announced some major changes to their platform policies around games:
- Apps on Facebook would need to migrate from the old Facebook API to the newer Graph API version 2.0 by April 2015.
- Games built on the new Graph API would no longer be able to publish posts to the News Feed. This removed a major virality channel.
- Games on canvas pages would be deprecated.
This effectively spelled the end for many existing games on Facebook that relied heavily on News Feed posts for users and couldn’t afford to migrate to the new API.
Then in September 2014, Facebook made another significant change – they started removing games from user profiles. Previously games were displayed prominently on a user’s profile page. The removal of games from profiles marked a symbolic end of an era.
Final Removal of Games
The April 30, 2015 API migration deadline came and went, with many game developers unable to migrate their games fully to the new Graph API in time. As a result, lots of games were left broken or unusable after the deadline.
On August 1, 2016, Facebook shut down the old API completely. This caused all remaining legacy games on the old API to stop working. And with that, Facebook essentially removed the ability to host games, marking the official end of Facebook’s social gaming platform.
Why Facebook Moved Away From Games
Facebook provided several reasons for moving away from games:
- Wanted to focus more on friends and family content in News Feed rather than promotional game content
- Mobile first strategy made native gaming apps better option than browser games
- Encourage developers to build more utilities and content vs just games
- Streamline platform policies and APIs
While Facebook has moved away from games, they have tried promoting other interactive content like cameras, Instant Games and Facebook Watch. But the social games ecosystem that existed in Facebook’s early days is now gone.
Current State of Facebook Games
Today, there are no more large scale social games like FarmVille left on Facebook. However, here are some gaming elements you can still find:
- Instant Games – Small minigames playable within Messenger and News Feed, developed using HTML5.
- Facebook Gameroom – Desktop gaming platform for higher quality games.
- Game streaming – Ability to stream games being played to Facebook Live.
- Game groups – Users can join groups around specific games.
- Game promotions – Game developers can still promote their games to Facebook users with ads.
While gaming was once a huge part of Facebook, it is now just a minor element. The social gaming craze has shifted to mobile, with people playing games like Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans on smartphones rather than through their Facebook feeds.
Conclusion
Facebook games flourished from 2007 to 2012, but went into decline after that due to platform policy changes and a shift towards mobile. Facebook started removing games from the site 2014 onwards, culminating in the complete shutdown of the old gaming API in August 2016.
So in summary, the timeframe when Facebook stopped having games was between 2014 and 2016. While some minor gaming elements remain, the era of big social games on Facebook is now over.