Facebook looks to drive players to games with News Feed modules

Facebook is testing new headlines for its latest games discovery module in News Feed to drive more users to canvas apps.

Some users are seeing versions of the module, which includes three suggested games, with the headline “Personalized games suggestions for you.” Other users have seen this module called “Games that are growing rapidly.” The original headline, “Games your friends are playing,” which was used when the module debuted in late January, is still in rotation for some users.

At least two of the three “games that are growing rapidly” as seen in the graphic below have been regularly appearing on Inside Social Games’ weekly list of fastest-growing Facebook games by monthly and daily active users.

growing-rapidlypersonalized-suggestions

friends-playing

This unit is not currently eligible for advertising. Apps that are included in App Center and have App Center screenshots can appear in this module organically.

We’ve heard from the comments section on our other posts that some users dislike seeing these suggestion in their feed. For others, though, it might be a useful way to discover new games they might enjoy, while driving traffic to different developers’ games. We’ve heard from many developers that an ongoing problem with putting games on the social network is discoverability, something Facebook’s been trying to address for some time.

Canvas games are still an important part of the social network’s business because it is the one stream of direct revenue from its platform. More than 251 million users played games on Facebook, as of October 2012. Approximately 27 million users bought virtual goods using Facebook Payments in 2012, up from 15 million in 2011. Facebook generated $805 million in games-related payments revenue in 2012.

This article originally appeared on our sister site, Inside Facebook.

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