How do Facebook game developers earn money?
With dozens of addicting Facebook games out there it got me thinking… how do those game developers earn money?
Zynga, who has 4 games in the top 10 and pulling roughly around 36 million monthly active users must be raking in a LOT of money. But how?
First thing that popped into my mind is through those ads that appears on the side of your Facebook. Just like blogging with Google Adsense, those ads can become great moneymakers.
Upon researching some more, it’s not those ads that’s bringing in the money. Besides, if I’m playing Mafia Wars or any other games I wouldn’t bother clicking those ads.
So how do game developers earn money with Facebook? 2 ways.
Direct Sale of Game Currency
Game developers are banking on those competitive or elitist players to buy items to give their character an edge over others or look better or simply just to feed their desire to play more.
In Mafia Wars, people can buy Godfather Reward Points via Paypal or credit card and use those points to improve stats, energy refill or to buy special, rare items.
Poker addicts will generally buy poker chips just so that they can continue playing. There are people who just can’t wait another day to receive a new batch of poker chips.
I know someone who actually bought Restaurant City coins just so that she can have the grandest looking restaurant among her peers. Hehehe.
Basically, revenue from the sale of virtual goods is a tried and tested way to earn money from online games. This has been true with those free MMORPG and other online community games.
Revenue from Offer-based Advertising
You probably have seen the option to get those Godfather Reward Points by simply downloading and installing a software, signing up on a dating site or order an anti-snoring product. These are called offer-based advertising.
Companies like Offerpal and Super Rewards have tools that allow game developers to incorporate offers from advertisers to be exchanged for the game’s currency. These tools handle everything from tracking, analytics and integration so that developers can focus on building the game itself.
So how much are they earning?
According to this report, a company as successful as Zynga has an annual run rate of $50 million to $60 million revenue as of March but it is expected that it would reach to $100 million by the end of the year.
Playfish, the makers of Pet Society and Restaurant City, is on track to make around $30 million in 2009.
Smaller developer teams, if successful, can make between half a million to a million dollars annually.
Ready to jump in the bandwagon and start creating your own Facebook game?
I would suggest aiming for the 18 and up market when designing your game. 75% of Zynga’s revenue is from the sale of poker chips! Too bad you can’t top their Texas Hold’em game anymore.
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Filed under: Gadgets n' Games, Think About It
I’ve been playing online games in and out of Facebook and the only game that I had spent some buck for was in Mousehunt – I bad needed those SB cheese.
Well, as you said, that was just to feed my desire for that game.
wow… san ba pwedeng mag apply as programmer ng games nila? …… lol
calvin: hehe gawa ka na lang sarili mo para walang kahati.
hmm.. ako ba yung sa resto city? hahaha! pati nga sa farm town napa bili ako the first time i started playing. hehe
calvin: hahaha. so ano lalaruin mo farm town, barn buddy or happy farm? sina gena happy farm eh.
I agree. Facebook is a worldwide phenomenon. With its millions of registered users also comes millions of great money-making opportunities. Build a massive list of targeted buyers and you can be making easy cash in no time. Invest your time learning how to make money with Facebook and it will be a time well spent. If Facebook developers can earn tons of cash, no reason that anybody can’t. Great post!
“75% of Zynga’s revenue is from the sale of poker chips!”
I do not think this is correct. Where are you getting your numbers/information? Plus, Zynga’s profits (even as of the writing of this post) are WAY higher than that, actually.
People reading this blog post should realize that there is no such thing as “easy money”, creating a valuable Facebook game/application requires a lot of work and that it takes money to make money. If you are not an experienced developer you can forget about it. The competition will simply steal your idea and execute on it far better than you could have ever hoped (and far quicker, too) … and you will have little to no recourse.
Better to just sit back and be fascinated by it all than to try and jump in to the fray and flood Facebook with low quality apps/games. You won’t make any money and you will only succeed in polluting the already murky library of apps. So I repeat… do not make a Facebook application if you are not a developer. If you ARE a developer… think long and hard about it and don’t try to copy someone else’s game, they will have already made it better than you can (Even if your mom disagrees and thinks your’s is better, it’s not). If all of that does not discourage you then who knows, you might have a shot! Good luck… but please keep all these points in mind when deciding to enter this market.
P.S. The ads on the side of Facebook that you see are Facebook’s own ads… not the developers… and the developers do not see a penny of that revenue regardless of how often they are clicked. Developers must find their OWN ways to monetize their applications and these ways must abide by the Facebook Terms of Use… so if you think you will run your own banner/google ads in your Facebook Game, think again. That’s not allowed. Like i said, no such thing as “Easy Money” or else we would all be rich!
you are absolutely right, no point in doing games that are not well thought of or half-baked. what you can probably do is just create a unique game that and market it well enough that it will make the big Zynga to just buy your company off.
the 75 percent cant be found on this link. Just search for “75 percent”.
Ah.. nice reference. Thanks. I guess that was a while ago… Still making a killing off of Poker Chips no doubt, but they have really diversified their revenue streams since then. Today, they are probably making more off of poker chips by the raw numbers (total amount of dollars) but less by a percentage of their total revenue.
In a perfect (or even ethically sound) world the bit about Zynga buying a well done game would be true… sadly, Zynga is far more likely to simply rip you off and copy your game, changing little more than the title. (Like they did to “Mob Wars” with their own “Mafia Wars” … Background: http://techcrunch.com/2009/02/14/mob-wars-creator-sues-zynga-for-copyright-infringement/ ) Well, they will change the title and pepper your idea with their own evil little scams to spread their games virally (why do you think they dominate the most popular apps on FB Games? Surely it is not because these “games” are any fun…. hehehe).
Luckily there are other big players emerging in the FB Game market. Playdom is a new face, EA is a gaming mainstay that is taking a stab at the FB market, Big Fish games has ported one of their classic PC Games to FB… and we can only expect more and more of the same from some of the established players in the Gaming industry. This is good for the FB Game user but bad for the un-funded, starry-eyed youngster who wants to put their quaint little 3 level adventure game on FB in hopes of becoming a millionaire. That’s what Kongregate is for… where “millionaire” is replaced by “kinda popular kid on a gaming network who made $40 last year from Google Ad revenue share”.
Lest my negativity be misconstrued, I did not mean to discourage the right team with a bright idea and a great game from entering the market and making a killing… there’s ALWAYS room for that kind of play. The market needs that stuff to keep the big guys on their toes. I was just hoping to discourage the “quick buck” thinkers from trying to put forth their pitiful spam-machine and making it that much harder for us to find a quality experience within the Facebook app catalog… that is the stuff that the big players are counting on to bolster their own images (and profits).
So if your idea is bad-ass, and you are passionate and serious… by all means, go out there and bring it! But if you think you can put together the “next big thing” in a weekend and start making boatloads of cash by forcing everyone to invite 10 friends… then it’s time to go back to the drawing board shortly after returning to reality. I repeat… no such thing as easy money. Money is really really hard to make a lot of. And a rule of thumb , as cliche as it sounds it’s true: it takes money to make money.
Have you ever heard about Facebook Hyper Traffic method to earn much more money on Facebook without any knowledge of programming or advertising? I’ll share this book with you too:
Part 1 – http://www.filesonic.com/file/210488682
Part 2 – http://www.filesonic.com/file/210449101
P.S. No personal website required and this really works!
uhh…. nope i haven’t. ill check it out. so you earn facebook money from what exactly?
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