Facebook is following the steps of Microsoft and Google in developing cloud games. This is coming following the deteriorating faceoff between the social media giant and iPhone maker, Apple.

The games services will be launched on web and Android, but not on Apple store, as Facebook says the usability restriction on Apple’s store policy pose a challenge to the game services.

TechCrunch reported that Facebook is not building a console gaming competitor to compete with Stadia or xCloud, instead the focus is wholly on mobile games. The system is designed to offer gamers alternative to streaming games, as long their device is capable of running it locally.

Facebook is aiming to get users into games more quickly and put less friction between a user seeing an advertisement for a game and actually playing it themselves. This means, users can quickly tap into the title without downloading anything, and if they opt to download it from a mobile app store, they’ll be able to pick up from where they stopped.

Apple has been in all-out war with Facebook and other companies regarding their terms and conditions, which were labeled oppressive. Epic Games, who sued Apple in the summer, and Facebook are at the forefront of the squabble as their games on the iOS were heavily affected by Apple’s new policies.

Following the launch of iOS 14 last month, Facebook is required to ask for users’ permission before it could be allowed to harvest personal data for targeted ads. Alternative to this procedure will require setting up a completely new advertising account to run campaigns for iOS users.

This development has limited Facebook’s ability to collect users’ data on Apple smartphones, and will have a serious impact on its campaigns.

Facebook founder

Apple has had a gaming app (Instant Games) Facebook launched earlier in August blocked because the game app was offering alternative stores with content that it cannot vet. Facebook launched the app without gameplay functionality, and it can be used to watch streams of other people playing games.

Apple kicked video game Fortnite out of its store, following Epic’s, the game’s creator, adding a feature that allows players to buy virtual currency using an alternative means, which denies Apple the opportunity to take its 30% cut.

In another case, Apple refused to waive fees for Facebook on its paid Online Events feature. The Online Event feature is designed to allow small businesses and individuals to organize paid digital events that Facebook users can sign up for and sell tickets.

Facebook had asked Apple to waive the 30 percent fee it charges from the in-app purchases for Online Events or allow Facebook process events payments using Facebook Pay. Apple turned the request down saying that it goes against its policy and App Store guidelines.

Following these incidents, Zuckerberg said Apple is becoming monopolistic and anti-competitive, and its practices are becoming harmful to customers.

“Apple has this unique stranglehold as a gatekeeper on what gets on phones. Zuckerberg told more than its 50,000 employees during a Q&A session. He added that California-based company’s app store “Cupertino blocks innovation, blocks competition and allows Apple to charge monopoly rents.”

Although Apple said in a conversation with TechCrunch, that they have continued to engage with Facebook on bringing its gaming efforts under its guidelines and that platforms can reach iOS by either submitting each individual game to App Store for review or operating their service on Safari, the social media giant seems to have had enough.

Apple had recently updated its policy to allow the game apps to exist, but it’s in a more convoluted capacity than the platform makers had hoped. The policy forces them to first send users to the App Store before being able to cloud stream a gaming title on their platform.

Facebook gaming executive, Jason Rubin says they are a non-starter for what Facebook’s platforms envisions – a way to start playing mobile games immediately without downloading anything.

Rubin said in terms of building the new platform onto the mobile web, without being able to point users of their iOS app to browser-based experiences, as current rules forbid, Facebook doesn’t see pushing its billions of users to accessing the service primarily from a browser as a reasonable alternative.

The steps taken by Apple to calm the storm generated by its policies, including the decision to withhold its cut through the end of the year for ticket sales of small businesses hosting online events, failed.

Facebook’s move for cloud games could cost the iPhone maker a fortune. Tech Crunch noted that Apple’s reticence to allow major gaming platforms a path toward independently serving up games to consumers underscores the significant portion of App Store revenues that could be eliminated by a consumer shift toward these cloud platforms.

Apple earned around $50 billion from the App Store last year, and according to CNBC’s estimate, gaming has been their most profitable vertical.

Facebook will be launching the cloud game services conservatively this week, starting with free services across a few states in the United States.

The Great Recession was exceedingly bad for the world. But the post-recession created a massive redesign for Africa. In this piece, used in Harvard Business School Executive Education, I postulated on a “golden era of entrepreneurship” for the continent. I was correct. As we go through the current paralyses in Nigeria, we need to think, as business people, what the implications could be for tomorrow. 

Unlike the Great Recession which was global, helping to shift the “knowledge” factor of production, from Europe and North America to Nigeria, the current mayhem in Nigeria could reverse the trajectory. If our brightest young entrepreneurs lose confidence in Nigeria, and switch, it would be sustained economic darkness. To avoid that, our leaders must LEAD with the fierce urgency of now.

Yes, they must invest to ensure we do not lose the battle of knowledge, and the application of that knowledge as that is the only way to become innovation societies with opportunities for young people.

Yes, they must invest to ensure we do not lose the battle of knowledge, and the application of that knowledge as that is the only way to become innovation societies with opportunities for young people. Unlike inventive societies which are characterized by ideas but little products and services to show for them, innovative societies offer solutions  and in the process accelerate human welfare.

The National Executive Council (NEC), in Nigeria, has set up a committee  that would address our current paralyses of youth unemployment and national security in the country. According to Premium Times, the “decision was taken on the backdrop of issues triggered by the weeks-long #EndSARS protests where young Nigerians sought an end to police brutality, before it was hijacked by hoodlums who have caused chaos across the country in the past week”.

As I have noted in the past, Nigeria must examine how the Igbo Apprenticeship System could help since the formal model of creating opportunities has stalled in the nation. So, NEC should examine if IAS could help accelerate government’s efforts in the nation on creating youth opportunities. The United Nations’ conclusion that “ the most human security secure geo-political zone is the South-East”  in Nigeria cannot be uncorrelated with the impact of IAS.

There is something that has worked in Nigeria. It is the Igbo apprenticeship system. It is the reason why the southeastern Nigeria is considered the region in Nigeria with the highest level of human wellbeing (not necessarily education attainment which is not exclusive) by the United Nations’  “Human Security and Human Development” report.

The report further highlights the existing gap in human security across the geo-political zones of the country; – the most human security secure geo-political zone is the South-East while the North-West and the North-East geopolitical zones are the least human security secured, with residents of the Federal Capital Territory being the worst in most realms of the Human Security Index. The North-East region of the country has been the most affected by the more than 5 yearlong military insurgency. It also remains among the least developed parts of the country.

The  Igbo Apprenticeship System is a business philosophy of shared prosperity where participants co-opetitively participate to attain organic economic equilibrium where accumulated market leverageable factors are constantly weighted and calibrated out, via dilution and surrendering of market share, enabling social resilience and formation of livable clusters, engineered by major participants funding their competitors, with success measured on quantifiable support to stakeholders, and not by absolute market dominance.

I call on the NEC committee to adopt and upgrade the IAS because it has relevance today in Nigeria. With a support system in IAS, we can deepen the impacts of government initiatives, and advance the welfare of our citizens.

‘Started as Alipay in 2004, Ant Group has transformed from a digital payments company for Alibaba to an aggregator of financial services. Today, the group’s lending, wealth management, and insurance offerings count for 63% of its revenue. In the first half of this year, a further shift in revenue generation saw the credit business surpassing payments for the first time ever. […]

Ant’s prospectus, for its dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong, states that “we call ourselves Ant because we believe that small is beautiful, small is powerful”, but if the company can keep this pace up, it will be marching on to a valuation more closely resembling an army of unicorns as opposed to anything reminiscent of its name’ was how Fintech Collective newsletter captured this eponymous company. 

Today, Alibaba’s affiliate fintech company, Ant Group (of Alipay), does generate more payment volume than Visa and Mastercard combined! Ant does $18 trillion while the American giants bring in $16 trillion. Ant was started in 2004 while Visa and Mastercard were respectively started in 1958 and 1966.

When a company of such scale and size goes to the public market, expect records to be broken. And today, we are noting that Ant did break a record. Yes, it has beaten Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, as the world’s largest IPO.

In a record breaking move, Jack Ma’s Ant Group pulled off the biggest share sale in history, with a $34.1 billion Initial Public Offering (IPO), beating Saudi Aramco’s previous record of $29.4 billion.

The Ant Group has been in market news as it prepared to make its market debut. The regulatory filing released Monday showed the Chinese tech giant priced its dual listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Shanghai’s Star Market at 80 Hong Kong dollars ($10.32) and 68 yuan ($10.13) per share respectively.

The $34.1 billion IPO puts the company’s value at $310 billion. Ant’s decision to file its initial public offering with Shanghai and Hong Kong markets signals a looming boycott of US markets by Chinese firms. The Chinese government has recently been encouraging its companies to avoid US markets, following the economic and political tensions between the two countries that have put Chinese companies under serious scrutiny in America.

You will wish you have this “ant” in your portfolio because Ant’s ambition is to go global and challenge Visa and Mastercard in domains where it does not exist at the moment. Team China makes history – the world’s largest IPO, and this came via a private company, unlike Aramco, which is a state owned enterprise.

It is becoming China’s world; prepare for it.

Ant Beats Saudi Aramco, Raises $34b in World’s Biggest IPO