Facebook Games Make Money, According to Developer Analytics
Facebook app analytics shop Developer Analytics released a report today detailing what it’s calling the “Top 20 Facebook Apps by Monetization Potential.” While the calculations are estimates based on data points from developers, panels, and surveys, they do illustrate that social games possess many of the measurable characteristics required to monetize apps well on social networks.
What was the methodology? Developer Analytics says, “Monetization potential is calculated based on five trend equations derived from hundreds of real CPM, and CPA/Virtual Goods revenue data points collected directly from developers and partners. The five equations relate revenue to total daily unique users, return users, churn rate, application age, and daily page multiplier (impressions/unique user/day).” However, DA caveats, “We currently have not implemented our system for tracking average time by hour spent on an app per user per day, so highly engaging flash games… have heavily underestimated monetization potentials.”
Games included in the top 20 are Mob Wars (which DA says could make $20k/day), PackRat (which only has 20k DAU), Friends For Sale, (Lil) Green Patch, Pet Pupz, and Parking Wars.
DA is very excited about Mob Wars, and with good reason – the game has a ton of highly engaged users that last a long time. One thing we do know is that, like many of the great social games of our time, Mob Wars is monetizing through a virtual currency system with incentivized CPA offers via Offerpal Media and Super Rewards.
Whether the coefficients in DA’s algorithms are right remains to be seen, but one thing is clear – you can make great returns with well tuned social games on Facebook.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
[...] Facebook game Mob Wars has recently been rumored to be the most profitable app on Facebook. While that will never be known for sure, one thing is clear: Mob Wars is making a lot of cash. [...]
October 10th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
fun
November 23rd, 2008 at 10:05 am
[...] successful is this? Mob Wars reportedly is the top Facebook game, making more than $20,000 per day (external estimates of $7-15M annual [...]
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:45 pm
[...] Facebook allows programmers to use Facebook’s platform for free, which does two things. First encourages programmers to come up an endless stream of programs. Second, this low barrier to entry allows almost all of the advertising revenue for these applications to be profit. (Some applications make between $2,148-$22,499 a day). [...]
April 8th, 2009 at 10:20 am
[...] Developer Analytics estimated in August 2008 that more than 20 Facebook Apps had monetization potential of $2,000 per day. Following the terms in its contract with application developers, Facebook virtually sees none of [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
k
January 31st, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Saltmarch Media is organizing India Game Developer Summit Event in Bangalore. This Summit will be a boost for the Game Developing Industries. It covers the topics like Online Gaming, Gaming Business, Gaming Career, Making Money in Gaming, Audio in Gaming, Mobile Gaming and Adobe Flash Platform and has 1 day workshop at the end as well. Any one attending this event?
Register at gamedevelopersummit dot com
April 22nd, 2010 at 8:44 pm
[...] We should note that we’ve hardly scratched the surface of this complex topic. There are many elements to building successful monetary ecosystems and how each one relates to gameplay. However, we felt that for game designers (or businesses) [...]
June 4th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Well, don’t think that only developers of Facebook can earn money from the site, WE can earn money with it as well. Facebook is a worldwide phenomenon. With its millions of registered users also comes millions of great money-making opportunities. Build a massive list of targeted buyers and you can be making easy cash in no time. Invest your time learning how to make money with Facebook and it will be a time well spent.I should know. I’m earning from it. Great post!
June 29th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Andy is right not only developers of Facebook can earn money, even me, I earned lot of money on Facebook. I have 3 suggestion to earn money on Facebook, you must SELL, ADVERTISE and GET INVESTMENT.
August 3rd, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Please can someone explain in detail how exactly to monetize a very simple Facebook multi player game?
ITs not complicated like Farmville etc.
And also who to use for CPA alternative to monetize apart from direc micropayments?
Thanks
August 4th, 2010 at 12:00 am
let your players pay for stuff they need in order to move on in the game. one way to monetize is to use a phone payment service like daopay.com.
January 20th, 2011 at 10:13 pm
to earn $2000 per day
February 17th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Hi a friend introduced face book games to me and i was so motivated to begin playing one for trial money.