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Facebook changing games service, probably (not) unrelated to Google Plus games

by Jessica Conditt on Aug 14th 2011 4:30PM

Sean Ryan, Facebook's director of games partnerships, is bringing some big changes to the social network's games service, including individual game recommendations a la Netflix, improving relationships with developers and focusing on quality of games instead of quantity. Game growth has slowed since Facebook got rid of game-notification spamming last year, Ryan said, stagnating at 200 million users, but it remains a focus for the company.

Facebook's announcement of coming innovation coincides suspiciously with Google Plus' rollout of its own games service, which is only taking 5 percent commission on its games (compared to Facebook's 30 percent) and has a separate tab for games updates, meaning no wall spam. It should be interesting to see which aspects of each other's services Facebook and Google Plus steal. What won't be interesting is how similar their games sections will be in the end.

Source: Gamasutra, (2)

Tags: facebook, facebook-games, farmville, google-plus, google-plus-games, pc

Reader Comments (28)

Haha love how it has Google Plus up in the corner search entry.

The main problems with this games is that you can only play for a given amount of time and you always need friends to get far. Which in reality I am glad they give you a time limit because the games are not good enough to play for a long time.

"Game growth has slowed since Facebook got rid of game-notification spamming last year" LOL? What? They TONED IT DOWN but there's still a lot of games that some how get through the system and spam constantly, though this is not limited ot just games. every now and then facebook will reset some settings for a lot of people....

Why is Kim Possible in that dog hotel game??

Seriously all these games on facebook? how bored are people?

@psnshe69mee

Oh come on, you know your life isn't complete until you've played a game named "Potty Racers 3". 2 Potter Racers games weren't enough, they needed to make a third!

Facebook improving relationships with game developers? No surprise there. They know Google+ is about to give developers an edge. If Facebook doesn't play nice, they can jump ship to Google+ now and never look back.

@PANdaRUS

LOL people who use Google+ know better then to play social network games... its Facebook who houses the MILLIONS of casuals who they target. When Google+ games reaches 200million users then FB can sweat a bit.

Amazing how Google+ just keeps coming out with features just before Facebook planned to announce those same features. Such a coincidence!

@MaJoR

are you all honestly going to turn this into yet ANOTHER fanboy war... consoles vs consoles, steam vs. origin, android vs. iOS and now social network vs. social network.... OEEHHH EEMM GEEEEE MY SOCIAL NETWORK HAS MORE CAUSAL SUCKERSS THEN YOURS LOLOLOLOL.

this tech ish is such a headache sometimes.

@PR0F3TA

For him to do that, there would need to be Facebook fanboys on Joystiq.

@MaJoR

So your saying Google is releasing features based on what facebook is about todo.

Zuckerberg has known about Google+ for atleast 6 months. One of the many things which annoy me about Facebook is, You simply cant respect a product which only gets it ass in gear when something is coming up behind it. People have been calling for these things to be fixed for a while Zuckerberg was just far to opportunistic for his own good.

Honestly, I didn't notice any lack of Farmville posts because unlike most lazy and irate Facebookers, I actually put in the effort to hide the application from my feed.

What was really obnoxious though, was that I would still get actual Notifications via e-mail and on my Notification tab up until recently.

I wonder if people realize that Facebook games have always existed, except they used to be called flash games, you weren't notified every time your friends played them, you didn't NEED your friends to play them, and they didn't charge you for things. Basically, those were better days.

Facebook would actually have a game-changer on their hands if they took the time to develop a quality service for once. Everything they do is third-rate, kinda like Microsoft in the 90s.

when will G+ be available to everyone? I still need an invite, guess I'm not part of the cool bunch.... anyway.... thats all I do now on facebook.

@misterAKA

What is your email ?
I send you an invite

@misterAKA If Gmail is anything to go by it'll be about five years before it's public.

@dark1024
rudewood5@gmail.com

THANX IN ADVANCE

hope facebook dies! :)

how do you look thru games now on facebook? i click on game and app directory but theres no button to look at more like there used to be

Facebook probably just made it harder to navigate and work everything the way you want to. That's how their updates always are.

I haven't been on Facebook in over 2+ years so all I can say is Marc zuckerburg who?

@type2red I can't honestly tell you that you're missing much.

you are being too harsh on the flash games. i actually like zombie lane. it's cute.
i heard here (http://www.mucho.com.br/news-details/76/V%C3%ADcio%20Casual) it was on g+ too, but i can't find it.

I like facebook. Only way for me to connect and talk with people, that I don't like to talk to in real life. Instead of them calling me, why not chat with me!

I'm a google fanboy, so hopefully + does well. It's going to be my new home, though.

That's cool...I was hoping for something like this to get rid of my games off the left side, as it only shows a limited number.

I'm glad Google jumped on this, as there is a market need for a more efficient game platform (than Facebook). If nothing else, hopefully Facebook will become more gamer-friendly as a result of the competition. One caveat, for Google+, though, people need to be able to be anonymous, and they are forcing your real name to be displayed. They should allow nicknames for games at least - in that respect they are no advantage over Facebook, who still tries to hold on to that old "real person" program they started with when Facebook was a little used "social gathering" website for old folks. Yes - its time to broaden the definition, and change some things.

Breaking News

Farmville

Facebook changing games service, probably (not) unrelated to Google Plus games

Reader Comments (28)

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 5:58PM BeatFreaker said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 5:58PM dael said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:01PM Kougeru said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:13PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:22PM psnshe69mee said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 8:31PM RogueJedi86 said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:22PM PANdaRUS said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:43PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:23PM MaJoR said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:46PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 11:34PM DBuckEye said

Posted: Aug 15th 2011 11:54AM McPo said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:35PM SolCross said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:36PM Fuzunga said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:40PM Siphillis said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 6:56PM misterAKA said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 7:33PM dark1024 said

Posted: Aug 15th 2011 1:31AM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 2:26PM misterAKA said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 7:32PM Naota1212 said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 8:12PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 14th 2011 10:10PM Ospov said

Posted: Aug 15th 2011 12:15AM type2red said

Posted: Aug 15th 2011 7:25AM TCJJ said

Posted: Aug 15th 2011 11:22AM sophiasalamandra said

Posted: Aug 15th 2011 11:49AM SpecBlank said

Posted: Aug 15th 2011 11:54AM hiruuamon said

Posted: Oct 17th 2011 12:01PM magusat999 said

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