Facebook, the world's biggest social media company, has announced a pilot programme, Facebook Mobile Games Publishing, aimed at aiding small and medium-sized developers to take mobile games "global".
The project was announced on its developer blog yesterday afternoon. In the post, Facebook software engineer Victor Medeiros says Facebook will work with select game developers and provide promotional support for their games in placements across its mobile apps.
"This will bring new, high-quality mobile games to the millions of Facebook users who love to play games."
There are more than 800 million users of Facebook's mobile applications and over 260 million people play games on Facebook, notes the blog.
"We continue to see record numbers of people playing games on Facebook, and the games ecosystem is steadily growing as developers keep building high-quality desktop and mobile games people love to play," writes Medeiros.
Medeiros says, as the mobile application ecosystem expands, breaking through and getting discovered in a crowded marketplace is the biggest challenge for mobile games. Facebook has already launched products such as mobile app install ads, which aids application discovery, he notes.
"However, there are many developers with awesome mobile games who don't yet have the upfront resources for a paid strategy, and we want to help them find a path to success, too."
Medeiros says the pilot project is designed to reach people who already play games on Facebook with new games that may interest them. Applications can be done online. "For example, we will help strategy game fans find strategy games and casual game enthusiasts find casual games."
In exchange for revenue share, Facebook will collaborate "deeply" with developers in the programme by helping them attract high-quality, long-term players for their games, says Medeiros. It will also share analytics tools and the expertise it has gained from helping games grow on its platform for more than six years, he notes.
"We're already working with 10 developers from all over the world, including the US, Europe and Asia, and we're excited to be introducing their incredible mobile games to people who we think will love them," says Medeiros.
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