French videogame star Ubisoft has made its debut on the online social scene by unveiling a gaming portal at the social-networking website Facebook.
UbiFriends portal came to life on Friday with a TickTock game that playfully challenges Facebook users to show how much they know about their friends. Unisoft's social debut came as the popularity of games at Facebook soars and videogame industry titans grow interested in creating titles for the social-networking platform.
"We are going to try to make the best game applications for Facebook just like we try to make the best applications for Xbox360 and Wii and PlayStation," said North American President of Ubisoft Laurent Detoc, referring to videogame consoles made by Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony respectively.
TickTock lets players arm virtual bombs by answering as many multiple-choice questions in a minute as possible about friends on Facebook.
Game software taps into Facebook status updates of players' friends for material for questions.
Virtual explosives range from cherry bombs to nukes and air strikes.
TickTock bombs are sent to personal animated warehouses at an UbiFriends portal linked to Facebook.
People receiving bombs get 60 seconds to defuse them by quickly getting as many correct answers as the senders.
"We are very excited about what Ubisoft is doing here," Facebook Platform Manager Gareth Davis said, while taking part in a demonstration of TickTock at Ubisoft offices in downtown San Francisco. "Ubisoft is using the social graph people share every day on Facebook to make a fun game tailored for Facebook users."
Facebook claims 250 million users and says games are the most popular software applications at the service.
Keep up with the latest business news from the region with the daily Emirates Business 24|7 newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, please click here.
Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.
