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As Facebook Developers Get the Beat Down, Playfish Says “Bring ‘Em On”July 23rd, 2008 at 12:06 pmSource:Mashable! Earlier this week, Facebook further updated its developer policies in an effort to prevent application spam. As today’s F8 conference kicks off, the social network is now expected to announce “preferred” application makers. Bottom line: it’s a tough time to be a Facebook developer, at least if you’re looking for the quick bait and switch. Recently I had an opportunity to speak with Kristian Segerstråle, CEO of Playfish, the popular social gaming company we profiled last month, about the upcoming changes to the Facebook Platform and what they mean to his company. First up, I asked Segerstråle about the new Facebook design and its implications for developers. He said “We’re very supportive of all efforts to improve the experience. When Facebook initially tightened up we were the first to say that’s great because ultimately we believe if social networks can create great places for consumers to hang out and spend time it will be the best possible enabler for the social gaming industry.” So far, gamers have been doing a lot of hanging out on Playfish’s games like “Who has the biggest brain?” In June, the company saw a total of 900 million minutes of usage across its network, which now also includes Bowling Buddies and Word Challenge. That was up from 300 million in May, and represents about 30 minutes of playing time per active daily user. According to Segerstråle the reason for such a high level of engagement is that “people end up treating the game as something they interact around and have a fierce competition between friends that drives engagement to a whole different level that you can’t get in the [console] video game industry.” The company is actually heavily rooted in the mobile gaming industry, with the founders representing the same founding team behind Glu Mobile. With games on Facebook and other social networks, Playfish is looking at alternative business models than the typical one-time purchases seen in the console and mobile gaming markets. For example, last week, the company launched a Pro version of Who Has The Biggest Brain? Currently, Playfish is using PayPal for payment processing, but expects Facebook to introduce its own payment system for developers in the near future, and also eyes premium SMS billing as an option for billing consumers for things like virtual items and game unlocks. Additionally, the company has also signed deals with AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft to power in-game advertising. Ultimately, Segerstråle expects transactions to represent the lion’s share of Playfish’s business. He says “We’re increasingly talking about transactions, we believe social gaming is primarily a transactional business.” If that’s the case, it could also represent a major piece of Facebook’s business model, as gaming is by far the most successful aspect of its platform, and an in-house payment system would give Facebook a piece of every transaction. We’ll find out if Facebook is ready to move in that direction later today, as F8 kicks off at 430et/130pt. —Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Playfish Creates Addictive Facebook Games [The Startup Review]Save the Date - Social Gaming Summit: June 13, 2008AOL Puts Third Screen Media to Use; Launches New Mobile GamesSGN Raises $15M to Build a Platform on Top of Facebook’s PlatformSocial Gaming Summit: User Generated Games [livestream]InterPlay: SGN In Bed With Mashable [Video]Social Gaming Network Expands its Platform
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