Skip to main content

Facebook reorganizes game applications

Farmville
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Great news for fans (and detractors) of Facebook gaming. Facebook has reorganized it game applications to make them more fun, and less annoying, for users.

Gaming is a contentious issue on Facebook. Roughly 200 million users love playing games, Facebook announced at a recent ‘Gaming Event’ at their Palo Alto headquarters, with the rest of their user base not as interested. This poses unique challenges for the service and for users who find themselves getting endless requests to play games they’re simply not interested in.

According to Facebook’s statistics, the top 10 games on the site have more than 12 million active users each. Facebook has conceded that the company hasn’t had, “the right tools to enable developers to grow their games while at the same time providing a great user experience for non-gamers.”

And with that, changes are being made to improve the experience for everyone. Here’s what those changes entail:

If you don’t play games on Facebook, you can expect to stop seeing your News Feed populated with application stories about those games. If you don’t play Farmville, you won’t have to read about it. There will only be game updates when something big happens, like several different friends signing up for one game all at once.

If you do play games on Facebook, you will see full game stories (instead of collapsed ones) in the News Feed. You will also see more calls to action within those stories, highlighting tasks that need to be completed inside the game.

Editors' Recommendations

Laura Khalil
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Laura is a tech reporter for Digital Trends, the editor of Dorkbyte and a science blogger for PBS. She's been named one of…
Jackbox Naughty Pack is the M-rated party game you’ve been waiting for
A still from the Jackbox Naughty Pack announcement trailer.

There won’t be a new Jackbox Party Pack game this year; instead, we’ll be getting a mature-rated game titled Jackbox Naughty Pack.

Jackbox Games made this announcement during Monday’s ID@Xbox Showcase with a short comedic trailer. Not much is being revealed about this package just yet, but Jackbox Games is confirming that this will be the studio's first M-rated title. It will contain three raunchy games for players to pick between that are “full of spicy surprises and maybe even some familiar faces.” Jackbox Party Pack games typically feature five games, so hopefully, these Jackbox Naughty Pack games have more heft to them to make up for there being fewer of them.

Read more
What is CPU cache, and why is it so important for gaming?
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D chip.

AMD's 7800X3D and 7950X3D hold the top spot in CPUs for gaming, not because they have the most cores or the highest clock speeds, but because they have the most cache. But what is CPU cache, anyway? It's a small quantity of super-fast, rapid-access memory built into the chip itself, helping it get the data it needs for operations at blazing speed.

The returns aren't linear, though -- there's a reason the 7950X3D doesn't have additional cache on all of its cores. In fact, there are some downsides to having lots of extra cache to work with, even if it does help push up gaming performance. Here's everything you need to know about CPU cache.
What is CPU cache?

Read more
Best PS5 deals: Console bundles, top games, and accessories
A person plays Crash Bandicoot using a PS5 DualSense controller.

The PlayStation 5 is probably one of the most popular gaming consoles right now, especially with the recent PS5 Slim release. It has a lot of great exclusive games to play, including some of the best games on the market, such as Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and  Elden Ring, so its no surprise that folks are looking to get their hands on the console. To that end, we've gone out and found some of our favorite gaming deals, and that includes everything from the PS5 console itself, to games and peripherals, so be sure to check out all our suggestions below.
Best PS5 deals

The PlayStation 5 has recently seen a great revision with it now slightly slimmer than before and also offering more storage space with 1TB of internal space resulting in 842GB of it being usable. You still get the impressive DualSense controller along with all the benefits that the PS5 offers. With the arrival of the new revision, there are some great bundles around, including a free digital copy of Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Read more