Facebook To Make ‘Facebook Credits’ Mandatory For Game Developers

Does anyone else see "(techcrunch.com)" at the end of the submission title and think of the boy who cried wolf?<p>This may be true but, for me, TechCrunch has gotten to the point where anytime I see one of their headlines I think it's sensationalist linkbait and I'm better off assuming what they're writing is exaggerated or simply not true.<p>As for the claim, it may be true but I really don't think it matters and this is something that's important for anyone assessing FB as an investment.<p>Facebook used to own social gaming. Arguably it still does. But it faces a huge threat, one which it hasn't remotely tackled: social gaming--and non-social gaming for that matter--is going mobile in a <i>huge</i> way.<p>Facebook gaming is built on Flash. As we all well know, Flash is incompatible with iOS and doesn't really suit touch-based interfaces for those platforms that do support Flash (eg use of rollovers and so on). That's not to say that you can't write a mobile-friendly game with Flash but, to date, most people haven't (in my albeit limited experience).<p>Facebook is, for most people, three things (IMHO): games, photo sharing and chat/messaging. FB's revenue seems built on ads and games. They're acting like they've got the market cornered on games but the don't. As Facebook usage goes mobile (as I believe it increasingly is), the draw of those games goes down and consequently so does the potential revenue.<p>Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo should already be scared to death of Apple as far as portable gaming goes. I think Facebook should add itself to that list.

It's funny how Apple charges 30% for in-app purchases, and that instantly becomes 'industry standard' in the minds of lazy TechCrunch writers. The cut taken by most virtual currency providers on Facebook is about a third of that.<p>The 30% figure can only stand up in an environment without competition. Luckily for Facebook (and Apple), they can create an environment without competition by fiat.

<i>Right now the vast majority of Credits are spent on gaming, but it’s very likely that Facebook will eventually begin allowing third-party websites to offer a ‘Pay With Facebook’ option, and that may include everything from digital content to physical goods.</i><p>Why would physical goods sellers use an upstart payment platform that takes a 30% transactional cut when there are tons of established financial firms who will do the transactions for 3%-5%?<p>I mean the fact that they are making this mandatory means that they can't even organically convince vendors who are selling virtual goods on facebook's own platform. Surely this is facebook worship hand waving.

If someone doesn't like facebook, now is a very good time to have DOJ slap them around for anti-trust, just like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft</a><p>If those major developers were told "close a deal because we're willing to mandate using credits" then Facebook deserves to be punished for anti market practices. There is little difference between "hey my OS is popular, let me use it to bootstrap my browser share" and "hey my Social Network is popular, let me use it to bootstrap my payments product".

Heh, Facebook will need to continue making special deals with major game-makers. Facebook Connect can be used to implement all of the social features these games have incorporated. Asking a game-maker to stay with Facebook and ignore the 30% cut they're taking is unreasonable after the product is popular. I can see the cut become an automatically tiered percentage based on the amount of transactions being done. The more transactions, the lower the cut.<p>Facebook simply does not provide enough value after these games are popular to justify a 30% cut. In all honesty, it hardly provides enough value at the beginning. Nothing says social games cannot exist without Facebook at all.

If they start allowing the sale of non-digital goods on Facebook, they had better drop the 30% cut. That'll never fly with retailers, no matter how much exposure their Page gets them. Current payment processors take about $0.10 per transaction.

Isn't the Secret Service going to have a problem with this? I thought making your own currency was a huge no-no, and if it gets too popular they are going to have a hell of a time passing it off as something else to the government.

I remember the days when you only had IRS dip into your pockets. Now everybody wants to take a turn.

If/when they do launch a "Pay with Facebook" feature, I'm sure they're aware that they'll have to come up with a fee schedule that's competitive with existing vendors like Paypal. I wonder if that would force them to lower their take on Facebook apps as well, or if they could finagle a way around that...

Its official<p><a href="http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/451" rel="nofollow">http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/451</a>

Its not hard to imagine FB could become the primary virtual currency for <i>everything</i> within a very short timeframe.

Oh god no. As a Facebook app developer if something like this becomes official it would be like the end of the world.<p>Where are you GOOGLE ME?! SAVE US!