GDC: Facebook paid developers $1.4 billion in 2011
According to a Facebook talk at GDC this morning, developers are making bank
Facebook has paid app developers more than $1.4 billion in 2011, according to Facebook games product manager Matt Wyndowe. VentureBeat reports that Wyndowe spoke at GDC this morning, letting developers know that the social giant is serious about supporting games on the platform.
"As early as 2010, we didn't have a dedicated game team. Now we have 40 full-time people on games. We meet weekly with [Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg] and [chief technology officer Brett Seyler]," said Wyndowe.
Facebook has been working on improving distribution and discovery on the platform, with features like a 'recently played' notification in the news feed and the Timeline. Wyndow noted that about 50 percent of active users return daily, with around 425 million users on mobile devices.
"If you make a really high quality game, our job is to bring you massive distribution and make you a lot of money," Wyndowe said. "Our job is to make sure people learn about your game and they engage with it."