Are Facebook and FarmVille Developer Zynga in a Standoff?
Zynga, makers of feed-cluttering, endless-status-update-generating agribusiness simulator FarmVille, is one of the biggest and most prominent Facebook developers. But that doesn’t mean they get along. Their relationship as of late has been described as “intense” and brittle, and it seems to stem from Facebook’s recent move into unified credits. The credit system, in which all in-game purchases must be conducted in FaceBucks (patent pending on that winner of a pun, Zuckerberg) instead of real currency. No problem there. But pushing their own credit system means Facebook can take whatever kind of share they want, and in this case it seems to be a whopping 30% profit. That’s money that Zynga would have simply kept before the introduction of the credit system, and the company is understandably irked. Chris Dixon terms this the “buyer-supplier hold up.” Zynga depends on Facebook’s network for their business, so if Facebook imposes this kind of tax, the company’s options are pretty limited.
