Illustration of Facebook mobile interface (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Facebook Announces They Will Begin To Publish Mobile Games
On July 30, 2013, Facebook has decided to announce that they will begin to publish games for mobile platforms. The announcement took place at the Casual Connect Conference in San Francisco, California. They are sharing the news in San Francisco in the hopes that the technologically-apt environment of Northern California will offer a number of developers that are looking to join their new game publishing effort.
Facebook has said that they wish to provide a platform for small to medium-sized publishers to bring their games to the world stage. With the increasing difficulty for developers to find a large audience, Facebook believes that they are in the position to market a new generation of mobile games. Essentially, they will help small-time game developers by promoting their games through ad-placement on their mobile apps, thereby acquiring a share of the revenue.
Although Facebook is primarily looking to promote indie-game developers, they will also be partnering with some multimillion-dollar developing companies. For example, Gameloft has joined with Facebook in their mobile effort, and they have an estimated worth around $652 million.
Facebook believes that it can use its technology to selectively market a number of mobile games. This may help gamers discover enticing, new games that they may have never uncovered in the past. With Facebook's massive amount of user analytics, they will be able to target anyone that would seem likely to enjoy a specific game. With mobile Facebook users reaching more than 800 million people, they will surely find no shortage in gaming customers.
So, how much are they asking in revenue shares? They have yet to officially announce any numbers pertaining to the revenue share, but on their website they stress the importance of "sharing in success." It is clear that Facebook is trying to do whatever it can to get a cut from the astronomical amounts of money being made through in-app purchases on Android and iOS platforms. These two major mobile app stores take 30 percent of the in-app purchasing revenue, so it would be surprising if Facebook asked for more.