Blizzard Adding Facebook Login and Facebook Live Streaming

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Blizzard Adding Facebook Login and Facebook Live Streaming

Blizzard Entertainment and Facebook are working together to provide gamers around the world with new ways to connect and share their gaming experiences, while bringing more high-demand entertainment content to Facebook’s global platform.

The companies announced today that a major step in their ongoing collaboration will begin later this month with the integration of Facebook Login in Blizzard’s PC games. This will enable players to sign up for and log in to games such as World of Warcraft®, Heroes of the Storm®, Hearthstone®, Diablo® III, StarCraft® II, and Blizzard’s most recent blockbuster release, Overwatch®, using their Facebook accounts.

Adding Facebook Login will pave the way for new social functionality in Blizzard games while highlighting Facebook’s capabilities as a platform for sharing, viewing, and discussing AAA game content. As an example, Blizzard is in the process of incorporating Facebook’s Live API in order to create its own “Go Live” streaming functionality for its games. When this functionality is implemented, players will for the first time be able to livestream their Blizzard-gaming sessions directly to their Facebook timelines, and friends will be able to subscribe and be notified when new streams are available.

“Blizzard games are best when played with friends, so it’s important to us to provide our players with features and services that make it easy and fun to share their experiences with each other,” said Gio Hunt, executive vice president of corporate operations at Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re working closely with Facebook on this integration for Overwatch, as well as our other games, and we look forward to sharing further details on our plans as development progresses.”

As part of the collaboration between the two companies, Blizzard recently hosted multiple livestreams via Facebook. The first series of streams centered on Heroes of the Dorm™, Blizzard’s collegiate tournament featuring its popular team-brawler Heroes of the Storm. Last week, Blizzard hosted a livestreamed launch event for Overwatch on Facebook.

“Blizzard has a passionate community of players, and an incredible track record for launching innovative and high-quality gaming experiences,” said Leo Olebe, global games partnerships director at Facebook. “Our collaboration on Overwatch demonstrates Facebook’s commitment to partnering with AAA game companies, while further empowering Blizzard gamers to connect and share the content they're most passionate about with the friends they play with around the world.”

In preparation for the Overwatch launch, Facebook worked with Blizzard on a comprehensive mix of Facebook and Instagram marketing solutions—including Carousel ads, Canvas, and Instagram Marquee. Using the platforms’ powerful targeting capabilities, Facebook helped Blizzard present the game to a broad set of gaming and entertainment audiences within Facebook’s and Instagram's global audiences of 1.65 billion and 400 million people respectively. On Facebook, more than 650 million people play games connected to Facebook every month across web, mobile, and console.

[Deleted]

Oh this'll be good. *gets popcorn*

[Lifelover]

The end is near!!!

[Justpassing]

Muh raid tiers

[Leih]

Facebook is still a thing these days?

Huh... who knew.

[Lahis]

I could have sworn they'd integrate Tumblr into their games next!

[lukoil]

6.3 content has arrived!

[Mahmeya]

It's 6.6.2016, something hellish was bound to happen...

[Azgraal]

I could have sworn they'd integrate Tumblr into their games next!

Just wait for the removal of all gender boundaries like EA just did to the Sims...

[Lifelover]

Facebook is still a thing these days?

Huh... who knew.

People spend around 50min in average on Facebook, so definitely "a thing".

[PingPong]

I don't even log on facebook anymore =/

[Droodid]

I use facebook as an easy way to login to other apps, guess it only makes sense as a way for this. Seems a little pointless, but I guess another tool I didn't know I needed.

[aceperson]

we've been making jokes about this since twitter integration... it seems blizz doesn't have a sense of humor and took the jokes seriously.

[Alixie]

Carousel Ads? There's going to be advertisements in the games if we connect with Facebook?

[Vexenar]

Facebook is still a thing these days?

Huh... who knew.

Mildly surprised it was chosen above Twitch.

[McNeil]

And to think Facebook integration was only meant as a joke...

[JunkHead]

This isn't going to be pretty.

[Marlamin]

I guess Facebook is paying them a lot of money. Twitch has a streaming API too and is clearly the more gaming focused streaming platform.

[blindWarlock]

This is actually quite good, it'll take two clicks for someone to impulse play WoW. This will influx many new players. As much as I want to Ponochet the shit out of facebook, this is good for the game.

[Appelgren]

Facebook is still a thing these days?

Huh... who knew.

Pretty much everyone in the whole world. Except you, it seems


OT: More options is generally better imo. This doesnt bother me so no hate here!