By Cecilia D’Anastasio
Facebook Gaming was supposed to be the social media giant’s answer to Amazon.com Inc.’s Twitch — a place to watch people play video games. Four years after its promising launch, the service has turned into an eerie digital ghost town where some of the most-watched accounts aren’t even gamers, some of the top live streams aren’t even live, and a large portion of the real gamers’ video views have disappeared.
The typical fare on a game-streaming site involves a player narrating as they play. But on a recent February morning, the No. 1 spot on Facebook Gaming was dominated by video from the military game Arma 3 billed as footage of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. Other top videos included a montage of chiropractic footage and an unmanned digital double-decker aeroplane, floating with no narration. Sometimes, the top live videos show southeast Asian…
