Facebook Boosts Gaming Soon After Google+ Social Gaming

Facebook hit the limelight of the new social gaming launch of Google+ by upgrading its own gaming system, making it easier to find and play.

Facebook will now have a separate stream of friends’ game activity, including scores and achievements in a ticker, linking in to games your friends are playing with updates about the games.

“The best way to find new games is through friends, and now you'll have more opportunities to see what they're playing,” Jared Morgenstern wrote in a Facebook blog.

Player can now add games to their homepage bookmark section.

Facebook has also added apps to make the games appear in a much larger screen. Games such as CityVille, Zoo World, Monster World, and Mystery Manor will be upgraded shortly so that it can expand to full screen.

Facebook seems to have been waiting for the launch of gaming system for Google+, which could be a threat to Facebook’s major source of revenue, according to Joseph Ranzenbach, vice president of operations at PrivCo, a company which analyses companies such as Facebook, Groupon, Zynga and others.

Google offered to take only a 5 percent cut of virtual goods game transactions from third-party game makers, while Facebook is taking 30 percent.

Bradley Horowitz, vice president of the product at Google, said games were a key part of the Google+ strategy from the start.

Google+ added a Games tab, rolling out a total of 12 games including Angry Birds, Zynga Poker and Bejeweled Blitz.

"With the Google+ project, we want to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web. But sharing is about more than just conversations. The experiences we have together are just as important to our relationships. We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life.

That means giving you control over when you see games, how you play them and with whom you share your experiences. Games in Google+ are there when you want them and gone when you don't," Google posted on its blog.