As part of a wider interview about PopCap’s first forays onto Facebook with Bejeweled Blitz and Zuma Blitz, vice president of social games Jon David has been discussing dealing with a platform where the ground is often shifting underfoot.
Specifically, he gave us PopCap’s opinions on the controversial introduction of Facebook Credits and the social network’s moves to limit viral marketing.
“The ground is shifting, but it’s interesting to watch how different developers respond," he said. "We really didn’t use the viral channels that much when we started out because we didn’t understand them. Back then, a lot of games were generating a lot of players by posting things to walls without the players even knowing. Facebook did a smart thing with the change to requiring the player to acknowledge what’s being posted. That makes complete sense, as it gives the player more control. Those changes are just Facebook looking after its customers. That hurt traffic for some games, but that’s the right call, and if Facebook keeps making those kinds of decisions, it will keep growing its user base, which is good for all of us.
“As for Facebook Credits,” David added, “some developers are pretty angry about this because Facebook is going to take a cut out of every dollar collected. We’ve operated on so many platforms in the past and that’s par for the course for us. We get that on Xbox Live Arcade, for example. And Credits are part of a goal to create frictionless ecommerce within this network. That’s going to improve your conversion rate. A one-click process is far better than asking players to open separate billing accounts for each game. That’s going to out-weigh the cut Facebook takes. We’re not freaking out about this: we think it makes sense.”
We recently explored the profound effect Facebook, the world's most popular social network, is having on the game industry.