Crowdstar Announces Exclusive Use Of Facebook Credits

Two companies agreeing to work together typically isn't news-worthy, however yesterday's announcement between Facebook and CrowdStar received a lot of attention. The attention was most likely a result of it being the second 5-year Credits relationship Facebook, following Zynga who hasn't yet announced an exclusive integration of Facebook Credits. Neither agreement announcement included many details, however this time around, CrowdStar has announced exclusive use of Facebook Credits within their games. A lot of this appears to be an attempt by Facebook to drive more awareness around their Credits product and to illustrate its use as a legitimate payment platform as an alternative to other existing services. However any form of commitment from other companies doesn't appear to result in a reduction in the fee that Facebook will charge that developer, at least as far as the company is willing to publicly announce. If Facebook was willing to reduce their fee for a few key partners, it would essentially dramatically improve Facebook's promotion efforts for the Credits service. For the time being, Facebook isn't saying that they've reduced the fee, despite this being the obvious benefit of any "exclusive" relationship. In this case, the cut is still 70/30 as is the case with all other developers. As such, we'll have to assume that this announcement was nothing more than Facebook becoming the exclusive payments provider. As Facebook has begun testing other payment options within their credits service, including Zong and others, it appears that Facebook may be moving toward a system in which they always serve as the intermediary for all transactions taking place on their Platform. While the company has emphasized that all activities are still tests, it also appears to be a natural progression. For the time being, Facebook is working on expanding their Credits platform while simultaneously downplaying most activities as basic tests and suggesting that the strategy has not been finalized. Yes, it may be tests, but we believe that Facebook will slowly push many payment providers not running through the Credits system off the Platform. While the company wants to tread lightly in this space as to not anger potential future competitors, if and when Facebook Credits moves off the site and on to the general web, Facebook's latest partnership agreements point toward an exclusive integration with an increasing number of Platform developers.

Social Pro Daily

Crowdstar Announces Exclusive Use Of Facebook Credits

Nick O'Neill

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Nick O'Neill