Facebook has tucked away a hidden mini-football game in its Messenger app. The newly rolled out football (or soccer) coincides with the Euro 2016 football competition and has been launched globally to cater the social media giant's worldwide football-crazed users.
The so-called hidden football game follows the earlier release of a similar basketball game on as part of its mobile messenger feature to coincide with the NBA playoffs and championship series. The game has reportedly been played more than a billion times already in just three months.
"Our little [basketball emoji] Messenger game we launched for March Madness and the NBA season was played over 1 billion times (!) over the course of the last 3 months," said Facebook Messenger chief David Marcus as quoted by the Independent. "Since you loved it so much, and it's the Euro 2016 & Copa America... You get where I'm going... [football emojis]! It's on!"
How to Play Facebook Messenger's Secret Football Game (via Trusted Reviews):
1. Make sure to download latest version of Facebook Messenger
2. Start a conversation with a friend then send the football emoji to him/her
3. Tap the football emoji in the chat box
4. The game should begin almost immediately
The football Easter egg is a way for Facebook to make its users strangely addicted to the Messenger app by building casual yet extremely fun games. The company hopes to lure more than a billion users to its messaging platform independent of its social networking site, the Guardian reported.
Among Facebook-owned apps and social media platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram, Messenger is struggling to attract a loyal stream of users. To make a more compelling sell, Facebook adds a number of fun features and third-party apps to keep users glued to Messenger as their top messaging platform of choice.
