Facebook Gaming is attempting to win over content creators and gamers from Microsoft's livestreaming platform Mixer after it closed down on July 23.
While many gamers from Mixer resist and consider Facebook Gaming "uncool", the company said it is trying to approach these content creators in a polite and respectful manner.
Vivek Sharma, head of Facebook Gaming, said: "We are taking that approach of introducing ourselves politely, showing up ... and just respectfully delivering results."
Video game livestreaming
Even with the closure of Microsoft's Mixer, the landscape for livestreaming games is still dominated by Amazon's Twitch, followed by Google's YouTube while Facebook Gaming comes in at third.
A report from Logitech-owned livestreaming software company Streamlabs showed that for the quarter ending in June, Twitch recorded more than 5 billion hours watched, while Google and Facebook Gaming had 1.5 billion hours watched and 822 million hours watched, respectively.
One of the most common metrics of a livestreaming platform's popularity and success is hours watched as it shows to advertisers how many millions of people are on the platform with money to spend on content creators through subscriptions and donations.
Prior to its closure, Mixer only hit 106 million hours watched during the same quarter, according to Steamlabs. In a blog post, the streaming site said it failed to scale quickly enough.
Investing in popular content creators
Mixer under-performed despite efforts to attract viewers by signing multi-million dollar deals with streamers like Ninja and Shroud. In 2019, the company made headlines after it signed exclusive multi-year deals offering millions of dollars to popular content creators.
According to analysts and competitors, Mixer's experience made them reflect on the strategy of throwing money to attract the most popular creators and learned that fans don't always follow a creator onto a new platform.
Sharma said: "We don't really go and chase after big names because we don't think this is a purely content business. If you do think it's a purely content business you end up becoming sorely disappointed, because often the numbers don't come."
Meanwhile, Doron Nir, chief executive officer (CEO) of livestreaming services provider StreamElements, pointed out that acquiring talent can still be an effective strategy for other platforms like YouTube but emphasized on the importance of building a community.
"I just don't think that dumping $20 million or $30 million [on talent] is a silver bullet. There are no silver bullets," Nir said.
Facebook Gaming's approach
Facebook Gaming claims that over 700 million of its 2.4 billion active users "engage with" gaming content on its platform monthly, the same number it reported in November 2019.
However, Sharma argued that while the number remained unchanged, engagement and hours watched in the most recent quarter increased by 200% over last year.
He said: "We feel very proud that our number is large but we're not just empty calories on our way to success, we're not just adding more random eyeballs. We're actually deepening the engagement."
In its breakdown, Facebook Gaming reported that of those 700 million users, more than 380 million play games such as "Farmville" each month while 200 million watch gaming livestreams. Around 230 million participate in gaming groups.
Some of them do more than one activity so they may be counted multiple times.
