Inside Social Apps 2012: Monetizing Social Games on Facebook: Today and Tomorrow

Inside Social Apps 2012: Monetizing Social Games on Facebook: Today and Tomorrow

Monetizing Social Games on Facebook: Today and Tomorrow

Terry Angelos, Co-Founder and CPO, TrialPay
Will Harbin, CEO, KIXEYE
Lisa Marino, CEO, RockYou
Rony Xu, CPO, Happy Elements

With the requirement that Facebook Credits become the exclusive premium virtual currency in social games on Facebook starting last July, there was much debate in the developer community regarding what both the short and long term impact of the change would be on the health of the developer ecosystem. Now that developers have had six months of experience exclusively monetizing through Credits, what does the monetization roadmap hold for 2012? How will Credits evolve beyond its current form to meet the needs of social game and other digital media publishers? Find out what top developers think.

  • How’s Facebook credits working out for you? Will Harbin – It is what it is. Our original hypothesis is that it would makeup up for the 30% commission, but that hasn’t been true. Lisa Marino – From our perspective, it’s fair for Facebook to take their 30% share. The developers need to learn how to design around those kinds of executions, and to maximize what’s going on in your community.  Rony – We like credits, and see 10-20% higher revenue in our game, in the Taiwanese market. Consumers in Taiwan don’t like to connect their online banking accounts because of privacy concerns. People like prepaid cards. So using Facebook credits gives audiences confidence.