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Facebook mobile games publishing scheme competes with Zynga and Rovio(Guardian Web Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Facebook is now a mobile games publisher, and that may be bad news for Zynga and other companies who've built social games businesses on the social network's platform. The company announced its Facebook Mobile Games Publishing initiative yesterday, to complement its existing system of mobile app install ads that enables developers and publishers to pay to promote their apps to Facebook users. Facebook will take an undisclosed share of revenues from the games, while sharing analytics with their developers. The initiative is launching with 10 developers, with others able to apply for inclusion via Facebook's developer site. "There are many developers with awesome mobile games who don't yet have the upfront resources for a paid strategy, and we want to help them find a path to success, too," blogged Facebook software engineer Victor Medeiros, as the initiative was announced at the Casual Connect games industry conference. He described the scheme as "a new pilot program to help small and medium-sized developers take their mobile games global", which will promote the titles of "select game developers" across Facebook's mobile apps, which currently have more than 800m monthly active users. "This program is designed to reach people who already play games on Facebook with new games that may interest them. For example, we will help strategy game fans find strategy games and casual game enthusiasts find casual games," wrote Medeiros. Developers on board for launch include UK-based studios Space Ape and Brainbow, alongside 5th Planet, Certain Affinity, Dragonplay, Gameloft, Gamevil, KiwiGames, Outplay Entertainment and WeMade Entertainment. Some of the companies included are already raising eyebrows within the games industry, though. Gameloft's revenues in the second quarter of 2013 were $73.3m, Gamevil raised $80m in a share offering in June, and KiwiGames raised $9m of venture capital funding this week. Hardly the kind of firms who "don't yet have the upfront resources for a paid strategy", then. But the most interesting implications from Facebook's move into mobile games publishing will come for larger companies like Zynga and Rovio, which have also been courting independent developers. Angry Birds maker Rovio launched its Rovio Stars publishing division in May 2013, aiming to sign up "the best new games from talented and innovative developers", and make them hits partly through cross-promotion to its existing network of gamers. Rovio Stars has so far published two games: A Viking Voyage by British studio Nitrome and Tiny Thief by Barcelona-based 5 Ants. Zynga launched its own third-party publishing scheme in 2012, and went on to release games including Horn by US studio Phosphor Games, Clay Jam by British developer Fat Pebble and The Respawnables by Spanish firm Digital Legends. However, the executive in charge of the scheme, vice president of partner publishing Rob Dyer, left Zynga in June 2013 as part of a wider spate of senior-level departures from the company. Now Zynga, Rovio and other big fish in the social/mobile gaming world – Wooga announced its plans to publish third-party games yesterday just after Facebook's news – will have to compete with Facebook to sign up the best developers and games. (c) 2013 Guardian Newspapers Limited. |