Facebook Credits Let Users Use One Currency Across All Apps

Lauren Admire

Rawrchiteuthis
Aug 8, 2008
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Facebook Credits Let Users Use One Currency Across All Apps



Facebook has proposed a new Credits plan that will make it even easier for users to spend pots of cash on virtual items.

Facebook Credits come hot on the heels of Zynga's appeal that the service become more app streamlined. The aim is to make purchasing virtual currency easy and painless. "The mental hurdle of moving to pay for something is high," explains Facebook Credit's manager, Deb Liu. "You take out your credit card, enter the information, and then buy something in Farmville. The next day, you play another game. If you want to buy something, you do all of that again. Imagine Facebook Credits as more like a euro, which makes it easy to spend money across countries."

The program is currently in beta, but more than 100 app developers are testing the program. Although Facebook stands to turn a hefty profit from this venture, taking a whopping 30 percent of all transactions, developers still think they would have something to gain by offering credits on top of their own virtual currency.

Facebook Credits will also be tied into your credit card and other services - Chase users will be able to spend their reward points on Credits. Facebook plans on giving free credits to users when it launches, which could entice them to purchase more later. At the moment, only 1 to 3 percent of users purchase virtual goods; but 3 percent of 400 million is still a baffling amount. If Credits can raise this amount even by a few percent, the entire endeavor would be worth it.

Liu says the ultimate goal is to help developers by helping to lower the barrier of entry that many users experience when deciding to purchase virtual currency.

Source: Venture Beat [http://social.venturebeat.com/2010/04/21/how-facebook-plans-to-fuel-the-app-economy-with-facebook-credits/]

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oppp7

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Aug 29, 2009
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Well, good for Facebook and it's users I guess. At least they're trying to make it easier for people.
 

Outlaw Torn

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Dec 24, 2008
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Notice how they automatically use a Scamga scam as an example rather than just saying 'you buy something in a game...'. They must have been bought out like The Escapist has.

But doesn't facebook already have something like this? I'm certain that there was something they wanted peoples' credit card details for, I just couldn't work out why anyone would pay for something on Facebook so never looked in to it.
 

Legion

Were it so easy
Oct 2, 2008
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Outlaw Torn said:
They must have been bought out like The Escapist has.
Not the smartest move to say that on an official news thread hmmm?
 

addeB

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Oct 2, 2009
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Ohh it's going to be easier to spend hard earned money on things that don't exist and don't make you happier!
 

Kenjitsuka

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Sep 10, 2009
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" The mental hurdle of moving to pay for something is high "

...and it SHOULD be! I can already see 12 year olds spending thousands of bucks on nonsense because that hurdle will dissapear. Like my stupid 15 year old sister who spent over 1200 Euro's on mobile text messages in 3 months, and my parents are now broke. Can't wait till the tard gets to spend money easily online, not ever having worked an hour in her life.
 

Lost In The Void

When in doubt, curl up and cry
Aug 27, 2008
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Outlaw Torn said:
They must have been bought out like The Escapist has.
Oh My God. Are you serious? Really I hope this is a well hidden joke. I'm assuming this has to do with Zynga being in March Mayhem. My God for something so small, people sure got a stick wedged up there for a long time.

On Topic, well if it makes it easier for those already spending money on these apps, then all the power to them, I'm still not pulling out my credit card for anything on there. Steam and Paypal are the only sites that get those details
 

DigitalSushi

a gallardo? fine, I'll take it.
Dec 24, 2008
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This is astounding, I hear they still have money in the bank so this isn't a desperate attempt to recoup losses.

Legion said:
Outlaw Torn said:
They must have been bought out like The Escapist has.
Not the smartest move to say that on an official news thread hmmm?
Ermm, Am I missing something, I thought the Escapist was always owned by the one with the goatee and his mate, Themis Media.

That and it would be nice to drop it, quit bitching because your not going into the pubclub anyway. Its like me bitching to a mushroom seller, I'm not going to buy his mushrooms so i'm not going to get in his face about it.

In October 2008, Zuckerberg said "I don't think social networks can be monetized in the same way that search did... In three years from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today."
mmmmm, interesting.
 
May 28, 2009
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Legion said:
Outlaw Torn said:
Legion said:
Outlaw Torn said:
They must have been bought out like The Escapist has.
Not the smartest move to say that on an official news thread hmmm?
Not everyone here has a brown nose.
Genius logic, I bet you are a science professor or something.
I love it when people think they're being big rebels or something.

OT: Someone here except me must've liked the idea of "credits". Now that's the kind of universal currency I'd give up pound sterling for. Although I'd rather have them in real life than on Facebook, since I never buy stuff from there - there isn't much I can think of that you could do with it.
 

Plurralbles

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Jan 12, 2010
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uh... doesn't facebook already has something? Meh, those free credits will be worthless"oh here's 5000 creidts!" "how much do I need to get something?"

"just the low, low amount of 1000000000000000000000000000!!!!!!!"
 

laserwulf

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Dec 30, 2007
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Would that mean that Facebook would then become more responsible for incidents like a British boy spending $1,385+ on Farmville? :D

OT: I really hope Facebook 'games' are just a fad, destined to fade away like Furbies and Pogs. They may attract non-gamers, but they lower the bar for defining a quality game.
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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Maybe will have more incidents of the children using mummy and daddy credit card!
 

BeAloud

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Apr 22, 2010
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There's an interesting YouTube video called The Bank of Facebook [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT6b_jXsN6M]...

However, Social Gaming in Asia is huge (the virtual goods market in 2009 generated $7 billion revenue!), this is not targeted at "hardcore" gamers or even pc/console gamers,but it's for everybody else (especially women over 30)

Facebook Credits could definitely be a huge step forward in FB monetization strategy [http://www.bealoud.com/social-media/facebook-credits/].
 

Gaias

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Apr 2, 2009
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Non-existent parity of credit to buy non-existent virtual good online and people think this will be good for future endeavors? *shakes head in disgust*