Facebook looking to be a mobile games publisher

Facebook is taking a rather odd new step. The social networking giant wants to get a better foothold in the mobile games market, where the company’s only source of revenue comes from ads. According to TechCrunch, the company is teaming up with smaller mobile game developers in a bid to become a new game publisher.

Most of Facebook’s revenue from games has come from either ads or real-money transactions from social games on Facebook. However, the company hasn’t been able to gain a foothold for in-app purchases, since both Google and Apple take a 30 percent cut on the purchases already.

Soon we’ll be seeing this instead of logos like EA and Ubisoft

Attempting to become a game publisher, Facebook seems to be looking to mimic the success of many major game publishers on more mainstream gaming platforms such as the consoles or PC. Typically, publishers market and sell a game for developers who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford the marketing costs.

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On mobile, smaller game developers are having trouble with reaching out to a wider audience because of the popularity of bigger companies like Kabam and Supercell. These bigger companies tend have million-dollar budgets for just marketing their games, which brings development costs up from hundreds of thousands to millions.

Facebook is looking to the East for inspiration, with, for example, South Korean social networking company Kakao being one of the biggest mobile game publishers in the country. Likewise, Tencent has also stated that its multi-platform messaging app WeChat will be getting games.

Smaller developers will undoubtedly welcome the move by the social networking giant since it will help exposure of what would have otherwise been niche titles.