Facebook Gaming is the latest cloud gaming service on the market, and the whole project already seems a bit low-key. According to Facebook's vice president, Facebook Gaming will not offer many titles at launch, will not replace traditional gaming hardware, will not offer paid games, and will not replace Facebook's current gaming options. Nor will it replace Facebook's current gaming options, according to the company. Instead, the real innovation lies in the possibility of Facebook selling interactive advertising.

The information was obtained from a Facebook blog post written by Jason Rubin, VP of Play. In the post, Rubin outlines five main points about the Facebook Gaming cloud initiative and four sub-categories regarding game selection, player profiles, interactive advertising, and the program interface. The post downplays what it calls "playable ads in the cloud," which may in fact be the most important thing Facebook Gaming has to offer.

"Cloud gaming announcements tend to be hype," Rubin writes, perhaps referring to the massive launch of services like Google Stadia. He explains that cloud gaming is generally not yet on par with console or PC gaming, and that Facebook Gaming intends to stick to free-to-play titles already available on the Gaming tab, and that iOS compatibility is not currently on the table.

Essentially, Facebook Gaming, in its current form, is just a way to stream Facebook games on Android devices. (Strictly speaking, you don't need to download to play the games, so you're already streaming them to your computer.) This is good news for those who play F2P Facebook games and want to continue their progress on their phones with no download required, but at this point it is still a fairly narrow application. Within the next few weeks, Facebook Gaming will be rolling out in California, Texas, and the northeastern United States.

Incidentally, the launch lineup includes Asphalt 9: Legends, Mobile Legends: Adventure, PGA Tour Golf Shootout, Solitaire: Arthur's Tale, WWE SuperCard Next is "Dirt Bike Unlimited. Dirt Bike Unchained" is next, with more titles to follow in the coming months. Incidentally, every one of these games is already available for Android; Facebook Gaming simply streams them to the Facebook app rather than downloading them from the Google Play store.

More: even more interesting is the "Playable Ads in the Cloud" section, which will be launched on both Android and iOS within the next few weeks. The demo is one of the most effective game ads," Rubin explained, adding that "cloud playable ads" will allow developers to promote their games using in-game code. This means that developers can include snippets of their mobile games directly in their Facebook apps without having to design an interactive HTML5 demo from scratch.

"For developers, creating playable ads in the cloud takes less time, costs less, and gives them more options. Players get a better sense of the game before they spend precious money, download time, and storage space."

It is no secret that Facebook makes a significant amount of money by aggregating and monetizing personal information, and selling ads is a big part of that. Building ads in native game code is a big step forward for mobile gaming, and it is not difficult to see both Facebook and mobile gaming companies seeing cloud-playable ads as a big money-making opportunity. Already, 2K, FunPlus, Gameloft, Glu Mobile, Gram Games, Rovio, and Wildlife Studios have joined the program.

In other words, Facebook Gaming's offerings in the near future are expected to be modest and not comparable to Stadia, Amazon Luna, or Xbox Game Pass streaming. However, expect greater things to come from crowd-playable advertising in the coming years. If this program works, the line between advertising and actual games may become uncomfortably blurred.