Facebook’s Instant Games now available to all developers

Facebook Instant Games’ closed beta just ended and the platform is now open to all developers, product manager Michael Weingert announced in a blog post, with newcomers able to submit their HTML5 games right away via the Facebook for Developers page.

Facebook recommends 11 HTML5 game engines to work with: BabylonJS, Cocos Creator, Construct3, Egret, GameMaker, GiderosMobile, Layabox, MelonJS, Panda 2, Phaser, Pixi Js, with full details for each explained here. Facebook added that “currently, games built with cross-platform engines such as Unity3D and Unreal Engine have a WebGL export that is not optimized for mobile and are not recommended.”

Weingert also announced a handful of new features in order for developers to “monetise, measure and grow their games” on the Instant Games platform. Going forward, devs will have access to an ads API, “ads optimization and measurement tools” such as the Monetization Manager tool, cross-promotion features, dynamic ranking updates, and more. You can find all the details in the blog post.

Facebook’s Instant Games launched in November 2016, with currently 200 games available. The games are free-to-play, run in a web view and will work across Messenger and the Facebook News Feed on mobile and desktop. Soon after launch, Canadian games outfit Big Viking Games announced a $10m publishing fund for developers looking to create content for Facebook’s Instant Games.

In October last year, Facebook added monetisation options and scaling tools for developers to the platform.