Facebook announces foray into mobile game publishing

Social networking giant Facebook has announced its foray into mobile games publishing. Facebook announced the new program that will have the company turn publisher for developers in return for a cut in the revenue.

The company announced its plans at the Casual Connect conference on Tuesday and wrote a blog post announcing that this publishing platform is being aimed at small and midsized game developers. “Through the program, we will work with select game developers and provide promotional support for their games in placements across our mobile apps,” Victor Medeiros of Facebook wrote. “This will bring new, high-quality mobile games to the millions of Facebook users who love to play games.”

Calling small and midsized developers

Facebook is currently already lending a hand as far as app discovery is concerned using mobile app install ads. Now, it is planning to help developers who don’t have resources for a paid strategy for promotions yet. Facebook will be able to help developers reach out to its 800 million monthly active users on the mobile and 260 million users engaged in social gaming. The social networking website also claims that it will be able to put the games in touch with the right kind of users. Strategy game fans will be able to find strategy games and casual gaming enthusiasts will find casual games.

In return for helping their games find long-term, high-quality users, Facebook will ask developers to give them revenue share. It hasn’t specified the percentage of cut it will be asking for. The social networking website will also be sharing analytics tools with the developers, besides promoting them.

Facebook is already working with 10 developers from across US, Europe and Asia currently. Some games already signed on to the program include 5th Planet’s RPG card battle game, Dawn of the Dragons, Brainbow’s puzzle-packed adventure game, Dr. Newton: The Great Brain Adventure, Gameloft’s medieval strategy/simulation game, Kingdoms & Lords, Gamevil’s city building simulation game Train City and KiwiGames’ quest-based exploration game, Shipwrecked.