Facebook boasts 250M monthly players, new games timeline this week

Joe Osborne
Updated
hardcore Facebook games
hardcore Facebook games

Mobile might be the new star of casual gaming, but Facebook still is nothing to scoff at. During a talk at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Facebook game partnerships director Sean Ryan spat off some impressive numbers. Of course, those numbers were accompanied by flashy charts and graphs to prove that Facebook is still a great place to create and play games. Facebook provided us with those stats and figures in easily digestible bullet points:

  • More than 250 million people are playing games on Facebook.com each month

  • As of February, 55% of top 400 iOS apps are integrated with Facebook

  • Last month, Facebook drove 263 million clicks to the Apple App Store and Google Play, from mobile News Feed

  • 20% of daily Facebook web users play games on Facebook.com

  • Game installs (on Facebook.com) are up 75% since this time last year (when compared to March 2012)

  • There are about 200 games on Facebook.com with more than 1 million monthly active users each

  • More than 100 developers generated more than $1M on Facebook last year

  • Year-over-year growth of the total number of payers on Facebook has increased 24% since this time last year (when compared to March 2012)

  • More than $2 billion was paid out to game developers in 2012. Most of our top developers generated record payments revenues on Facebook last year.


Despite claims that players have abandoned Facebook for mobile app stores, Facebook still holds on to a massive number of monthly players. However, a hefty chunk of those 250 million belong to the almighty Zynga and competitors King.com and EA. That fact alone, which Ryan was keen to avoid addressing, would explain the claims that many developers (even Facebook's big three) look to mobile for either more growth or a fair shot.



However, it's clear that Facebook is well aware of the issue, as the company continues to push out new tools and features for both players and developers. This week, Facebook announced a new-and-improved developer center for game makers, as well as news that the new games section for the Facebook timeline should roll out this week.

Ryan also made it terribly clear that Facebook plans to double down on targeting the hardcore gaming audience in 2013 with games that boast rich 3D graphics and focus on action. And while there's no doubt that such games are a possibility, whether these games catch on in a massive way a la League of Legends and other free-to-play hits is yet to be seen.


Are you still digging games on Facebook? Will mobile eclipse Facebook as the premiere casual gaming destination? Add Comment.

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