Bulletins

Facebook debuts a new Pac-Man game designed for livestreaming

The new take on the classic arcade title comes with features designed for collaborative and completive play.

A screenshot of Pac-Man Community.

Pac-Man Community will let livestreamers invite viewers jump into games with just a link.

Image: Facebook Gaming

The newest game on Facebook is one of the oldest in history — Pac-Man — but it has a twist. This version of Pac-Man is a competitive four-player take on the arcade classic intended to be livestreamed on the Facebook Gaming platform, so viewers can compete against streamers in a matter of seconds.


The title is called Pac-Man Community, and it's project commissioned directly by Facebook parent company Meta with one of its developer partners, Genvid, that last year produced a unique Facebook reality show and video game hybrid called Rival Peak. This new take on Pac-Man, with the blessing and input of Japanese IP holder Bandai Namco, is a Facebook Gaming exclusive, existing inside the company's main mobile app as an HTML5-powered browser game and on the web too.

Because of the underlying delivery mechanism and its small file size, the game loads almost instantly and does not require a download of any sort. That's par for the course with browser games, but it's especially helpful for Pac-Man Community because it allows Meta to deploy its "Play With Streamer" feature.

With an invite link, Facebook Gaming creators livestreaming Pac-Man Community are able to invite viewers to play against them, with the link loading the game in a matter of seconds. The feature is similar to one Google has tried with Stadia using links on YouTube's livestreaming component, though with mixed results.

Genvid CEO Jacob Navok, a former cloud gaming executive at Square Enix's now-defunct Shinra Technologies, said the goal was to find a game that fit his company's focus on using livestreaming technology to enable new types of online experiences. Earlier this year, Genvid raised more than $110 million in series C funding to create what Navok is calling “massive interactive live events,” be them gaming or broader entertainment events.

"The No. 1 problem we saw was that if a streamer was in the middle of a big dragon part or part of a quest or playing a battle royale, it's very hard to allow for massive audiences to organically be a part of that," Navok told Protocol. "What you really want are really quick sessions that anyone can participate in really quickly." Pac-Man, it turns out, fits the bill rather nicely, and Novak, with his experience in the Japanese gaming industry, had the connections at Bandai Namco to pull it off.

The Facebook Gaming division is also using Pac-Man Community to test out an all-new livestreaming feature in which viewers can participate in a game of livestreamed Pac-Man controlled by in-game artificial intelligence, helping either the titular character or its AI ghost antagonists by interacting with the stream. The goal in the future is to create new types of viewer-controlled livestreams in the spirit of the famous Twitch Plays Pokémon experiment that make audience input an integral focus of what's happening onscreen.

Latest Bulletins

Mobile game revenue will decline for the first time in history this year, market research firm Newzoo now says in a revised outlook for the 2022 global games market. While the whole game industry is expected to contract by 4.3% — another first since Newzoo began tracking the market in 2007 — the company is predicting a 6.4% decline in mobile game spending on top of a 4.2% decline in console game spending.

Keep ReadingShow less

Amazon is planning to lay off thousands of employees, Protocol has learned, ahead of what the company has cautioned will be a slow holiday shopping season.

Keep ReadingShow less

Google agreed to pay $391.5 million and make changes to its user privacy controls as part of a settlement with a coalition of 40 state attorneys general. The coalition accused Google of misleading customers about location-tracking practices that informed ad targeting.

Keep ReadingShow less

FTX has filed for bankruptcy and the crypto company also announced that founder Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned as CEO.

Keep ReadingShow less

Salesforce recently updated its internal policies to make it easier for managers to terminate employees for performance issues without HR involvement, Protocol has learned, a move that comes as the software giant looks to shed as many as 2,500 jobs.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said fraud and scam reports comprise the top complaint it receives about virtual currencies — and that customers are finding little help from companies when it happens.

Keep ReadingShow less

Elon Musk sent his first email to Twitter staff late Wednesday, warning of a difficult economic road ahead and telling employees they need to be in office for a minimum of 40 hours per week. "Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message," he began, ominously.

Keep ReadingShow less

Binance isn’t buying FTX after all. The crypto giant said Wednesday it has decided that it “will not pursue the potential acquisition” based on a “corporate due diligence” review.

Keep ReadingShow less

On Wednesday, John Kerry unveiled a plan for a new carbon credit program aimed at mobilizing private capital to help middle-income countries transition away from coal and move toward renewable energy.

Keep ReadingShow less

Meta announced it was laying off more than 11,000 employees Wednesday morning, slashing jobs in its recruiting department and refocusing its remaining team on AI discovery, ads, and its investment in the metaverse.

"I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here," Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a message to employees that was also posted online. "I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted."

Keep ReadingShow less

Al Gore has one mission this week at COP27, and that’s to give climate negotiators what he hopes will be a critical tool to address the crisis at hand: an independent, global inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, down to the individual facility.

The Climate TRACE coalition just released the world’s most detailed inventory of global greenhouse gas emissions, which Gore, a founding member, is unveiling on Wednesday at the United Nations climate summit in Egypt.

Keep ReadingShow less

Way back in March, your friendly Protocol Climate team offered you some tips for writing a climate plan that doesn’t suck. Surely you took that advice. But if for some reason you didn’t, the United Nations has your back.

Keep ReadingShow less

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said Tuesday the crypto powerhouse signed a deal to acquire rival FTX.

Keep ReadingShow less

Salesforce is preparing for a major round of layoffs that could affect as many as 2,500 workers across the software vendor, Protocol has learned, in a bid to cut costs amid a new activist investor challenge and harsh economic conditions.

Keep ReadingShow less

BlockFi has introduced a new digital assets interest product for accredited investors, after previously agreeing to shut down a yield-paying crypto product that the SEC said was illegal.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Justice Department said Monday it seized $3.4 billion worth of bitcoin stolen in the 2012 hack of the Silk Road dark web marketplace.

Keep ReadingShow less

U.S. election infrastructure is exceedingly secure, and voter fraud here is so rare it’s comparable to your annual chances of getting struck by lightning. Despite this, former President Donald Trump and a long list of allies in the Republican Party have spent the last two years questioning the overall integrity of the U.S. election system. Many of those allies are now candidates themselves, and their coordinated attack on the country’s status as a democracy is not a relic of 2020. Some have already started repeating these “Big Lie” charges ahead of next week’s midterms. And the social platforms that help them spread their message have prepared few measures to stop it.

Keep ReadingShow less

The White House just laid out its climate tech priorities to reach net zero by 2050.

Keep ReadingShow less

Coinbase said Thursday that it lost more users in the third quarter. But the decline wasn’t the disastrous drop that Wall Street was expecting, and that sparked a rally in the crypto company’s shares after-hours.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Biden administration announced $9 billion in funding Wednesday to improve home efficiency, which could help support the installation of up to 500,000 heat pumps. With winter approaching and utilities warning of gas shortages, there are some major challenges facing the technology that money can be used to tackle.

Keep ReadingShow less

Block beat earnings expectations, with strong growth largely fueled by its Cash App business. Traders sent shares up more than 12% after-hours Thursday.

Keep ReadingShow less

Stripe is laying off 14% of its staff, its co-founders said Thursday, as the fintech startup must start "building differently for leaner times."

Keep ReadingShow less

Roku saw its revenue growth slow in Q3, and warned investors Wednesday that things are about to get worse: “A lot of Q4 ad campaigns are being canceled,” said Roku CEO Anthony Wood during the company’s Q4 earnings call. “We’re seeing lots of big categories pull back. Telecom, insurance … even toy marketers are planning on reducing their spending.”

Keep ReadingShow less

Green jobs and corporate climate pledges abound, but skilled sustainability professionals are scarce.

Keep ReadingShow less

Robinhood reported a drop in third-quarter revenue but also a narrower loss on Wednesday, in a sign that it might be stabilizing its business as it attempts to recover from a staggering drop in the stock and crypto trading activity that fueled its growth.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bulletins