Facebook Instant Games Playable Inside Messenger Launches Globally

Facebook introduced a new way for users of Facebook Messenger to play video games a few months back. Via Messenger users can play HTML5 Instant Games that don’t need to be downloaded. These Instant Games have been playable in the US since November and now launch around the globe with 50 titles to play and enjoy.

Along with the global rollout of Instant Games, Facebook has also added some requested new features to the service with turn-by-turn games supported. Originally only single player games were supported and the only competition in the games with other players was a score leaderboard.

One of the first new turn-by-turn games is Zynga’s Words With Friends. That particular game allows people to play against each other and supports chat services at the same time. A Games tab in Messenger is in testing and has curated top games listed. Facebook said during its F8 conference that Instant Games were played 1.5 billion times in the past 90 days reports TechCrunch.

Instant Games doesn’t force players to view or watch ads and games have no in-game purchases to deal with. This means no money is being made by Facebook or developers of games on the service. There are ways for games to raise awareness for brands with branded games like the Batman Bat Climb advertising the LEGO Batman Movie. The trick to allowing these games without downloads is HTML5 coding prowess of developers.