Facebook is rolling out a new pilot developer programme called Facebook Mobile Games Publishing that will see the social network collaborate with select small and medium sized games developers in a bid to increase their exposure.
Initially, Facebook will be working with 10 studios — spread across, the UK, Europe, the US and Asia — before looking at expanding the scheme more widely.
The full list of early participants include:
- 5th Planet’s RPG card battle game, Dawn of the Dragons
- Brainbow’s puzzle-packed adventure game, Dr. Newton: The Great Brain Adventure
- Certain Affinity’s pirate-themed strategy game, Age of Booty: Tactics
- Dragonplay’s social poker game, Live Hold’Em
- Gameloft’s medieval strategy/simulation game, Kingdoms & Lords
- Gamevil’s train management simulation Train City
- KiwiGames’ quest-based exploration game, Shipwrecked
- Outplay Entertainment’s explore-and-battle fantasy game, Monster Legacy
- Space Ape’s multiplayer combat strategy game, Samurai Siege
- WeMade Entertainment’s endless-running game WINDrunner
While most of the support from Facebook will come in the form of promotional support to increase the potential audience, it’s not an altogether altruistic move. In exchange for the support, the social networking behemoth will get a cut of the revenue on each game sold. Reaching a wider audience will equate to more games sold, which will in turn result in larger revenues for Facebook.
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“With more than 800 million monthly users of our mobile apps and more than 260 million people playing games on Facebook, we are using our unique reach and targeting capabilities to help games in our program find and engage a valuable audience of the right users,” it said in a blog post.
Naturally, we’ve asked what percentage of revenue Facebook is asking for, but hadn’t received a reply at the time of publication.
It’s interesting to see Facebook testing out alternate revenue streams in the form of revenue share considering the potential income it could see if it could score one or two hit games like FarmVille or more recently Candy Crush Saga.
In its most recent financial results, Facebook seemed to put to rest the suggestion that it couldn’t monetize mobile users of the service, with today’s announcement, it looks like the platform is looking to go that one step further and tap even more diverse revenue streams.
Headline image via KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images
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