Facebook Messenger has just added some classic 80s games, namely, “Pac-Man” and “Space Invaders,” to its growing list of instant mini games within the app, the company announced on Tuesday.
Its “Instant Games,” which load right away without the need to download separate multiple apps or complete other steps before you can start playing, will also reportedly include “Words With Friends” and a slew of other enjoyable and potentially addictive games from indie developers.
The new gaming suite is currently being rolled out in about 30 major countries worldwide. If you check it now, you can open the games in a chat under the game controller icon — similar to the popular basketball shooting game — and compete with others in a one-on-one or group conversation.
While many wonder why Facebook would not just create a separate app and infuse all the games, tech experts and sources suspect that the company hopes it will increase the use of the app and boost our interactions as we try to beat each other’s scores.
Although these mini games are not anywhere at the top of our list of things that we hope Facebook would improve on, the company’s head of Messenger, David Marcus, said that it deserves a place in the app.
“We now know that gaming can be a popular thing on Messenger based on our little experiments with soccer and basketball,” Marcus told Mashable.
The app’s first game, The Basketball One, has reportedly been played over a billion times since it was launched in March 2016.
