A Guitar Hero-like music game on Facebook: not an unfamiliar idea, but a big one. And until now, an idea that hasn't been addressed on quite the same scale as Facebook's 500 million-strong userbase, let alone the countless millions of songs these people listen to and own.
Instant Jam, created by browser gaming specialist InstantAction, is an attempt to live up to this vast potential. Launching in closed beta today, it allows you to play songs you own on your hard drive (with your Guitar Hero or Rock Band guitar or keyboard) through a 3D interface in your browser, plugged into your Facebook friends list.
InstantAction, the browser-based platform that enabled gamers to play titles like Secret of Monkey Island and more recently Instant Jam, a sort of Guitar Hero that enables people to use their entire music library for songs to play, is shutting down. The company, which sprung up from the GarageGames business back in 2007, was radically overhauled when former Electronic Arts executive Lou Castle took over as CEO.
InstantAction, an Oregon-based web gaming and digital distribution platform, will cease operations. Gamasutra confirmed the closure, which was announced on the the company's Torque game engine site.
Director of InstantAction's Torque game engine operations Eric Preisz posted the company's statement: "Today, InstantAction informed employees that it will be winding down operations. While we are shutting down the InstantAction.com website and Instant Jam game, Torquepowered.com will continue to operate while InstantAction explores opportunities with potential buyers for Torque. We thank all of our past and current customers for their support."
The company had made several smaller games, like Instant Jam and Monkey Island, available to play using its browser-based tech. The tech's eventual promise was to make large games playable almost instantly through a browser or full screen as the title was progressively downloaded to the user's PC.
"The embeddable version has been announced, and I would like you to play it. Go ahead. I've embedded it right under the "Read More" tag. So take a couple minutes, check it out, then tell us whether you agree with my "hey, this is neat!" preview."
-G4tv.com
