What is a game feed?
A game feed is a vertical, full-screen stream of small games in which every card is a game that is already running. You do not pick a game from a list, download it and wait for it to open. You are inside it the moment it is on screen, and one swipe puts you inside the next one. Batata is a game feed, and as far as we know the first one built entirely from games made by its own studio.
Three properties define it
First, the game is live before you decide. The card does not show a trailer or a thumbnail; it shows the game, playable, with its start button in front. Second, one gesture moves you on. Swipe and the next game is running. Third, one quality bar applies to every card, because the feed has no search box to hide bad games behind: if a card is not worth the swipe, the feed is broken.
How it differs from an app store
An app store is a catalogue. It shows you descriptions of games and asks you to commit: download, install, open, sit through a splash screen, accept something. The commitment is the price of trying. A game feed removes the price. Trying a game costs the same as scrolling past it, which changes what kind of game can succeed: a game that is fun in its first five seconds, not a game with the best store page.
How it differs from a video feed
A video asks nothing of your thumb; a game asks for it constantly. So a game feed has to settle who owns each gesture. On Batata the game owns the canvas, and the swipe that moves to the next card is relayed by the game itself, so a game built on swiping still works inside a feed built on swiping. A video ends when it ends. A run ends with a score, and the score is the reason you come back.
Why Batata built one
Short games and short videos ask for the same minute of attention. Video got its container a decade ago; games were still handed out through stores built for boxed releases. Batata is the container: every game made in-house, understood in five seconds, verified scores, leaderboards per game, challenges you can send to anyone. The feed is the product. The games are why it is worth opening.