STOP Sending Facebook Game Requests -OR- How YOU Can Take Control of Facebook Game Requests Once and For All

 (A Public Service Announcement from Seek Social Media)

“STOP SENDING FACEBOOK GAME REQUESTS
OR I’M GONNA BLOCK YOU!”

I see this or something similar posted on Facebook by friends and family almost every day.

Here’s the thing, some games and apps auto-send invites to Facebook friends of the player, without the player’s knowledge. Other times, the players believe they’re only inviting ‘certain’ friends, but inadvertently send them to ALL of their Facebook friends, which often gets them unfriended.

My advice to those getting game requests they don’t want: Don’t hate the player, hate the game (or rather, block the game)! You can take control of game and app requests so that you don’t get them from anyone; thus, you don’t lose friends over Facebook games and apps!

Let me show you how to rid yourself of these requests (Game Players: scroll to the end to learn how to minimize game/app activity that your friends see!):

HOW TO TAKE CONTROL OF GAME REQUESTS WITHOUT BLOCKING FRIENDS THAT SEND THEM:

Option 1: If you play no games and use no apps on Facebook, you can easily turn off all requests from every game or app in a few clicks (yahoo!):

  • Click the down arrow at the top right of your News Feed. From there, click Settings

settings

  •  From the menu on the left side of the Settings page, click Apps.

app settings

  • Once in the Apps Settings Dashboard, click Apps, Websites and Plugins then click Edit and Disable Platform. While you’re here, you should check the settings for all four of these options to ensure that they’re set the way you want them.

app settings dashboard

 NOTE: When you choose this option, you will be unable to use any Facebook apps or play any games (see below).

 disable platform

Option 2: Turn off requests from specific games or apps. This is done from the News Feed as request notifications are received.

  • When you click on the notification icon (globe icon) from your News Feed and see the dreaded game request, simply hover over the right side of the request. You’ll see a down arrow and an X. Click the down arrow and you’ll see the option to stop notifications from XYZ Game. Click that and you’re done! 

turn off game requests2

  • After clicking Turn Off, you’ll see the following. You can now breathe a sigh of relief because no matter how many friends attempt to invite you to play this game, you won’t receive a notification! Yippeeeeee!!!

turn off game requests3

For Game Players/App Users:

To ensure that your game activity isn’t sent to the News Feed to be seen by all of your friends, thus annoying many of them, set all game/app activity to Only Me using the drop down box (see highlighted areas below). Also double check what information the app is requesting from your profile (see red arrow below) as some apps are not worth using if they request too much of your profile information – or that of your friends.

game activities - only me

I hope this helps alleviate some frustrations for the non-game-playing Facebookers out there and keeps your Friend list intact. I also hope that game-playing Facebookers will be more cautious about the permissions they’re granting to games and apps on the platform.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below!

Carole Billingsley (@YouSeekSocial) is a social media consultant and trainer. Combining her social media expertise with her decades of experience in entertainment and education, Carole founded Seek Social Media in 2011. She is known for her ability to make technical and social media topics easy to understand for even the least tech-savvy business owner. Specialty areas: social media, customer experience, digital presence, crisis management.

2 Comments

  1. Facebook
    December 18, 2017

    Here are the best techniques of Facebook and also acts as a guide with even game requests.

    Reply
  2. Kitty Walker
    January 7, 2018

    Carole, thank you so much. As a former Farmville-er, I have been vanquished by most of my family (can you spell “unfollow?”). I have a question that I have been unable to find the answer to: I would love to find a way, other than the tedious customizing, for sharing notifications with game-specific FB friends only. Ex: I play one called Criminal Case, and have 40-50 fb friends whom I would love to receive notifications about bonuses, etc., without screaming them to my whole fb family and/or newsfeed. I thought I’d found a way, via joining the fb gameroom, but that has had unintended consequences (like my receiving notifications every time someone in the room, even non-friends, makes any game move. Ugh!). If you cannot answer this dilemma, I understand…but if you could steer me in the right direction, I’d be most appreciative. I am a small business owner (psychotherapist in private practice), an not very tech savvy, and am hoping to get better personal boundaries as I enjoy the “down time” which social media provide.
    Peace,
    Kitty

    Reply

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