Facebook, the social networking giant, is well-known for its massive popularity. The site that was first started as a dorm room creation in February 2004, is also increasingly popular with gamers. Throughout the year 2013, developers will further add at least 10 hardcore titles to help the social network target players who spend more time and money.
Facebook is opening its doors for developers to improve its users' gaming experience. The company is expecting for developers this year to extend console-style action games beyond Sony's PlayStation or Microsoft's Xbox, onto the largest social network.
The company is spearheading the launch of high-quality games created by third-party developers in 2013 that target hardcore gamers, that overlooked far against the wealth of numerous casual games and family-friendly offerings like Zynga's "Farmville" that now dominate the social network's gaming landscape.
Sean Ryan, director of games partnerships, said during a press event that Facebook would be diversifying its gaming offerings, with a specific focus on these type of action and adventure games. "Role playing games, strategy, core or mid core games, are expected to be seen for the explosion of genres," he said. Facebook had over 300 million players across all its genres at the time. "You'll see a whole set of games hitting in the next two quarters in particular and throughout the year that really start to redefine what people think of Facebook games."
Facebook will embrace games from "casual, to all the way up through first-person shooters, massively multiplayer online games, real-time strategy games - all those types of more core player-versus-player games."
The effort which began late last year, but will accelerate in 2013, is part of Facebook's ongoing objective of making sure its over a billion users log in and spend more time on the network, which in turn boosts ad revenue. Beside showing ads for revenue, Facebook also takes a cut of its applications' revenue. Facebook that doesn't produce these games, partners heavily with third-party developers who pay the social network 30 percent of its revenue from in-game purchases. Facebook confirmed that it expects a bulked up hardcore gaming roster this year, but emphasized that developers could choose to develop and launch more games.
Facebook says that the games have been able to draw an audience that is 97 percent male, with 10 percent of these users making purchases within the game.
With "Farmville" still sitting on its number 1 spot, the social giant that had lost a significant amount of stock price since its $104 billion IPO, is hoping that the new games will attract new people who will spend even more time, and more money, on its site.
The Gaming Population
Over a quarter of Facebook's monthly active users play games, making it one of the largest gaming communities in the industry, and by having that number at hand, the social network hopes that it can grow.
On Wednesday, January 30, 2013, Facebook's Chief Financial Officer, David Ebersman, told analysts on a post-earnings conference call that its "games ecosystem continues to show healthy signs of diversification" and suggested that games revenue would grow with increasing user engagement.
To grow its gaming business, Facebook has invested time and resources to work with developers since the summer to bring titles like u4iA's first-person shooter "Offensive Combat" and Plaruim's real-time strategy game "Stormfall: Age of War" alive, Ryan said.
"It doesn't mean we're walking away from other games, but there's no question our focus for 2013 much of it will be about becoming a better platform for core gamers and developers who make those games."
The company's been steadfast in this mission, encouraging developers and creating easier ways for people to find these types of games. In January 2013, Facebook updated its App Center categories to give "Action" and "Adventure" its own slots. This also shows users about their friends who also play the game. It brought back notification messages from game apps - a feature that had been removed - with certain restrictions to stop developers from sending spams to gamers.
Based on the console gaming industry experience, hardcore gamers that are typically men from 18 to 30 years of age, spend more time and effort to master fast-paced games such as first-person shooters or real-time strategy games. And beside spending more time, these people also pays more. And since hardcore gamers can generate higher average revenue per user than traditional casual games, Facebook, from the first time it entered the gaming industry by giving a platform for users to play games, has been long awaited that it will embrace the potential it sees from hardcore gamers. And this year, the company is looking forward to see that happen.