Facebook is reportedly planning to include games in its Messenger application. The Information reports the move will help increase engagement as well as open up more revenue sources for the social networking giant. The report further says the company is already in talks with a few developers for this purpose.
Though there is no word on when the feature will be rolled out, but we expect it to happen soon as the competition from other messaging application across the globe heats. According to the report, Ilya Sukhar, the executive at Facebook, has confirmed the development but did not divulge more details about release date. "Currently, we think Messenger Platform is best suited for apps that focus on content creation and curated content," Mashable quotes a Facebook spokesperson as saying. "But, one of the reasons we were excited to announce that Messenger Platform is open to all developers is to see what people build. From there, we’ll think about what else might make sense."
Gaming will be an interesting addition to Messenger, which now Facebook aims to project as a platform. The company has already been wooing developers to join the platform. Messenger, which has over 600 million plus users, has seen addition of a slew of new features such as money transfer, video chatting and web version, over the last few months. However, the Messenger platform application hasn't seen much of traction. The Information points out Facebook has been 'slow' to up the engagement with the Messenger app as several third party developers have complained about lack of users awareness and getting them to use the apps regularly.
In a related development, reports suggest Facebook has plans to allow users of its popular chat app WhatsApp to engage with brands and businesses directly. “We think that enabling that [business to consumer] messaging has good business potential for us," The Verge quotes Facebook CFO David Wehner as saying. "As we learn those things, I think there's going to be opportunities to bring some of those things to WhatsApp, but that's more longer-term than the near-term." As said above, Facebook has huge plans for its Messaging application. Recently, the company had announced Business for Messenger initiative under which it allowed users to engage with brands and businesses for customer service inquiries and so on. Interestingly, Facebook has rushed to open up its WhatsApp platform such services.