Facebook Game Payment Requirements

[Ravinos]

Reminder: Required Migration to Facebook Credits by July 1st

Effective July 1, we will require social game developers on Facebook Platform to process all payments through Facebook Credits, as we announced in January. To prepare for your players and business, we strongly recommend that you begin migrating to Facebook Credits if you have not already made steps to do so. For information on implementation options and best practices, please see the Facebook Credits Integration Guide.To learn more or follow the latest news on Facebook Credits, visit the Credits Developer Guide.

So this system is the only system that can be used to process payments for Facebook apps. You can longer utilize your own system or accept payments routed through a 3rd party.

Personally I like this idea and so far it seems to streamline the whole process. Facebook gamers buy a generic credit and use it in all Facebook games that accept payments. The developers get to set the prices of course still. For every $1 spent on credits and used in the app nets the developer 70 cents and Facebook gets 30 cents. Payouts are on a 30 day timer and the account must have $100 or more to process the payment.

Since I am developing my game solely for Facebook, I don't see an issue with this but other seem too. Feel free to let me know about your thoughts.

[Jackolantern]

I guess whether this is a good thing or not depends on what kind of fees you were paying to your previous payment service. If a game was simply using Paypal to take payments (which I believe has a fee around 6 - 10% depending on volume and plan) then this would be a 20 - 24% loss of revenue. That could, however be acceptable if they offer more services than your old service, such as charge-back arbitration, etc. Paypal and many other generic payment services are known for being very anti-digital downloads, and almost immediately side with the customer and reverse funds because they can't prove any service or product was rendered. However, having the proof within Facebook's own systems could help the developers. I hope it works out to be a plus for you guys!

[hallsofvallhalla]

wow 30% is high for what it is.

[Ravinos]

Yes it is. This is the only option you have when taking payments on a Facebook game. I have yet to find out if "donations" with a "reward" system is still valid or not. I guess that might be a way to "accept" payments for in game currency. It's how Mousehunt does theirs I believe.

[Noctrine]

Paypal fees are 2.9 - 1.9% + .30, amazon and Google are similar.

They offer some services but its mostly discovery (and ease of purchase for Facebook game players also arguably). most of the currencies benefits are only available if you explicitly make credits a part of your currency system (where your currency is based off of Facebook credits instead of cash).

You are still liable for chargebacks for 90 days. Though I don't see any explicit fees related to it (ala PayPal and what not)
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Balancing a game economy is already difficult, and you have to consider what kind of net effect using Facebook's currency has on your game. (What if a game comes up that devalues the credits?) This becomes even more true when its not a game that runs only on Facebook.


http://developers.facebook.com/docs/creditsapi/ info here.