EA and Facebook have entered a five year partnership with each other, where Facebook Credits will be the official currency of the games that EA will develop on the social networking site. It will be used to purchase goods and other items for the users to use on their games.
EA has seen that Facebook is becoming a good platform for users in playing games and entering the partnership will boost up the exposure for EA. Facebook has 500 million users, with 200 of them playing games and EA wants to “help create a better and more accessible experience” for the 200 million users, according to Barry Cottle, General Manager of EA Interactive. And just like other developers of Facebook, 70% of the revenue share from the Facebook Credits will go to EA while the remaining 30% will go to Facebook.
According to Cottle, gaming has emerged as a very popular aspect in Facebook and the “natural step is for EA to broaden its relationship with Facebook and its 500 million users […] make the best games tailored specifically to the platforms on which people want to play”.
Facebook is also thrilled with the partnership as Vice President of Partnerships for Facebook, Dan Rose states that they are looking forward to having a good working relationship with EA, since Playfish has done high-quality games that Facebook users are enjoying now.
The video game publisher has broadened their opportunity now in Facebook gaming since they bought Playfish for $275 million last year. They have famous FB games such as Pet Society and Restaurant City that are still part of the top 10 games being played in Facebook. EA also plans to expand more by putting the famous board game Monopoly in the future and is having the beta version of Pogo games now, which consists of different puzzles and board games.
Hopefully, this will be good for EA as there have been reports that they had net losses. Recently, it was reported that they lost a total of $291 millions in revenue, while last year, EA posted $391 million loss in revenue. Executives hope that the new investment and deal with Facebook will help them in bringing back their losses.
It is nice that EA have done this because, with the economy now, partnerships are very important for companies to hold on to each other in times of financial difficulties. I am looking forward for more of EA games because I am one of the 200 million Facebook users who play their games.
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Tags: ea and facebook partnership, facebook credits in EA games, nfl madden with facebook credits, playfish with facebook credits
