Former Nintendo of America president, Reggie has poked fun at Facebook claiming he doesn't believe FB is an innovating company, and that they just buy studios like Oculas and Instagram 

Reggie Fils-Aimé Isn't a Believer in the 'Current Definition' of Facebook's Metaverse Vision - IGN

"Facebook itself is not an innovative company,” Fils-Aimé said. “They have either acquired interesting things like Oculus and Instagram, or they’ve been a fast follower of people’s ideas. I don’t think their current definition will be successful.”

He also says that more acquisitions after MS's purchase of Activision/Blizzard will continue. As well as stating the industry size and its thirst to grow.

"This is a global industry touching 3 billion people across the world; it’s a $200 billion business,” Fils-Aimé said. “The representation in the game and in leadership is not at all where it needs to be.”

He's absolutely right. Beyond it's inception, Facebook hasn't innovated, its just been responsive in acquiring competition. Meta I think is the first bold, owned initiative the company seems to be tackling

Considering (now dead) sites like Lunarstorm offered basically the same functionality as early Facebook before FB was launched (given regional, mainly in Sweden) you can argue that FB wasn’t that inovative even at its inception.

Yeah, and in Brazil Orkut was very successful before FB bulldozed everything.

Reggie is right, and, I'll add, tech companies should thrive in solving problems that people face. What is the problem solved by Facebook? Finding people? Really? We don't actually need a social network in our lives. People just have enjoyed finding similar lines of thinking, and that is actually detrimental because idiots (think Nazi-like ones) were either ashamed to admit what they were or didn't know there were so many of their kind, and now they are not only together, but they are proud to show the world their stupidity.

The best thing that's come out from Facebook existing was a kick ass movie! Still one of my favorite movies of all time. Can't believe it's over 10 years old now!

Agreed. And it only grew bigger and bigger after that, what kinda baffles me when we think of us as a society.

If this was the case, what problems gaming studios are solving? 

Social networks are useful to connect people. I've found many long-term friends using them, and they are a way to keep in touch with distant friends that I would otherwise love contact with time  

I've even already found a job using social networks. Your claims are short signed, it's definitely an useful tool

Being useful is in no way incompatible with what I said. Your claim about video games is also not exactly accurate, since most video game companies use tech as a mean to deliver something, be it a product or an experience. What you said is like implying we have no use for cinemas, because going to theaters is not solving a particular pain. Or music, as in, why do we need music? Video games fall into the same category, so you need to come with a better example.

Big techs sell the tech in itself or its application. And this pain that I mentioned before is related to the companies of today, like, Uber solved a pain of people that needed to find transportation faster while giving a few others the opportunity to work with said transportation. It solves a problem. Microsoft, through Windows, helped make PC popular. Facebook claims to on this same side of things, but it solves nothing, especially because the people you found (long term friends that you can't find without social media? Really?) would not be discovered if they did not opt to be there on FB, and they could place their names and addresses on the phone list, which already existed decades before FB.

Bold: But they aren't solving any problem, they created a market that didn't needed to exist at all. Business aren't supposed to be strictly problem-solvers, you can create value without solving anything and this isn't restricted to Tech. The value social networks are creating is the ability to interact with people you otherwise couldn't and to follow a bit the lifes of people in your own social circle  

Bold 2: Nope, I couldn't. I've found them online precisely because I wasn't able to make friends on school or neighborhood. It's curious because only after I established online friendship I could mature and find people to be friends with on my "real life", now I have friends in both, but it only started because of social networks

And even if I was able to form bonds without social networks doesn't change the fact many of people I became friends with would never met me without social networks, in this sense I'm glad social networks exists

And mind you, social networks actually DOES solve a problem, which is the problem to fast keep in touch with people. Before social networks you need to keep a list of friends and make regular calls or write letters to ask how those people are doing and expect them to follow suit. After social networks you can easily see this by yourself, as long the person is updating their profile and you both are willing to keep contact. 

Talking about Facebook, what they bring to the table was the feed. Before the feeds the social networks were based on research engines and browsing friends profiles or communities (if the social network had communities). The feed greatly reduced it, because the feeds are like discover. They also developed state of art recommendation algorithms so your feed would be personalized to make to stay in the network as much as possible, which I don't think it's exactly a good thing but it is what is is, people like it

Besides feeds are useful, I got tons of great publications, articles, news and opportunities on my Linkedin thanks to its feed, which is basically a copy of Facebook feed

Yeah, I see your point, and maybe I could have been clearer. To sum it up, in innovation there are usually 2 types of solutions: 1. the ones you cannot do without once stablished and 2. the ones that are nice to have. FB seems to claim to be the of first type, in which usually the most innovative solutions are, but it falls mainly in the second category, that being the reason Reggie is right.

And back to your comment, you are correct, social medias do help you get in touch with diverse people. But that does not make FB an innovative company in itself. Talking about myself, for example, I don't like, or borderline hate, Facebook. For me, I could not care less if it did not exist. So it is not absolutely necessary for today's standards, since one like myself can easily do without it. Can we state the same about, say, smartphones? That's the original discussion, and I think it's rude to be called short sited if all I ever said is corroborated by many of these facts.

Edit: forgot to address this: "they created a market that didn't needed to exist at all" is something you raised yourself that applies perfectly to FB and most of their products. Your own argument proves my point.