Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Facebook makes the life of game developers harder

Facebook is one of the biggest game platform in the Internet. A lot of games are relying on posts and notifications the games are posting to get more players or to get players to play more.

This will change with the new Facebook settings. Users will only get news from farmville when they are farmville players.
An user would not see anymore when a friend reached a new level in game as example.
This cuts off some marketing channels for game developers. An ext step from Facebook to find a way to monetize better on games.

See post from blog.facebook.com:

A Better Games Experience
by Jared Morgenstern on Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 8:37pm
Games are an important way we connect with people, from family game night, to playing console games with siblings, to card games with friends. More than 200 million people play games on Facebook every month because it's easy to get started and play with friends. We're focused on improving the quality of the experience for those who play games, as well as those who do not. Today, we're launching features to give you better control over the updates you see in your News Feed.

Previously, you've had the ability to hide an application story, or block it completely. Now, we're putting changes in place so game stories only post to your feed if you're playing them. This means people who play games can post stories to their Wall without worrying about overwhelming their friends who aren't playing, and people who don't play games won't see irrelevant stories in their feed for which they have no context.

For game players, here are some improvements we're excited to be launching today:
§ Full stories in News Feed so they won't miss when a friend shares an action or needs help in a game. The more active a person is in a game, the more prominent the stories will be.
§ Smarter bookmarks on the home page that will automatically appear and reorder based on the games they're playing. They will no longer need to individually bookmark apps, and it will be easier to get to favorite apps.
§ A clearer, highlighted number for pending requests or tasks alongside bookmarks.
§ Requests in the Games Dashboard, where they can manage all their game activity and discover new games.

You’ll no longer need to bookmark individual applications, as the ones you use most often will automatically appear and reorder.
People who do not play games will only see stories when a particular game is added by a group of friends, instead of ongoing News Feed stories. These dedicated stories will show which friends are playing a game, making it easy to join them. Over the coming months, we plan to launch additional features that provide improved and personalized social games and News Feed experiences. Happy gaming!

- Posted using My iPad

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