People love playing games. Facebook provides hundreds of game “apps” to choose from. Some of you prefer to play games through Facebook, and that’s great. The only drawback to playing Facebook game apps is that, unless you adjust your game settings, all your Facebook friends get to share your successes be seeing updates on your progress. These constant updates can become really annoying to your non-playing friends, sometimes to the point that they will block you instead of blocking the game that posts your accomplishments on your behalf.
I play games on my phone, downloading the game apps from iTunes. Although I’m playing on my phone, I’m continually being offered the “opportunity” to invite my Facebook friends to have just as much fun as I’m having with this game, or let them all know that I’ve finally cleared Level 53 and have earned a power booster. Even though I’m completely fanatical about a game (frickin’ Candy Crush!), I realize that not all my Facebook friends may share my enthusiasm.
So how do you keep your friends, but make the Facebook game apps less annoying?
Meet your “gear”. This is your new best friend. When you’re on Facebook, do you see it sitting up in the top right corner? Click it. You’ve now just put yourself in the drivers seat for controlling what you will allow on your timeline, and what you’ll allow others to see of your activity on their timelines.
We can talk about all the other Facebook privacy settings later. The settings we’re focusing on right now are the games. Below you will see instructions on how to adjust privacy settings for those of you who play games, and for those of you who don’t.
1. You play games through Facebook apps, but want to keep your game playing to yourself.
(When you first choose to play your game, you’re given the option to let the app post your activity. If you missed it, and your game activity is showing up everywhere, you can still fix it. As long as you’re at it, you might want to adjust all your games settings.)
- Go to your gear and click on “Account Settings”
- On the left side, choose “Apps”
- On the App Setting list, to the right of each of the games you play, click “Edit”
- Where it says: “This App can also: Post on your behalf” click the little “x” on the right.
2. You want to block game requests from specific people.
Do you have a Facebook friend that you dearly love, but they keep sending you invitations to play Candy Crush or Bingo Bash with them? Here’s how you can block their game requests, but not block them.
- Go to Privacy Settings
- Click Manage Blocking
- Scroll to Block app invites
- Type in your friend’s name
3. You want to block everyone from sending you requests to a specific game.
It seems all your friends are playing Candy Crush (it’s addicting…have you played this game yet?), but you are sick to death of hearing about it. You can block all game requests from any game.
- Go to Privacy Settings
- Click Manage Blocking
- Scroll down to Block apps
- Type in the name of the game you want to block
If you like to deal with problems as they arise, you can block game requests a they come in. When you receive a notice that “Annoying Person” has invited you to play “Annoying Game”, click the “x”
Image Credit: Digital Trends
Once you click the “x”, you’ll be asked if you really want to do this. Clicking Turn Off will stop notifications related to this app from coming into your Facebook account.
Image Credit: Digital Trends
And there you have it. Carry on.
