In EVE Online, for instance, one player, Nightfreeze, allegedly cheated his in-game friends and rivals out of hundreds of millions of in-game "credits" using nothing but fake accounts, a public library's telephone, some help from friends, and his wits.
The company has every major social game developer using Credits, from which it takes a 30% cut with each transaction.
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Finally, in midst of the transformation and buzz, in mid-January 2011 Facebook quietly announced that starting July 1 this year it will require all Facebook social game developers to process payments through Facebook Credits and do a 30 percent revenues split between Facebook and a social game developer.
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More commonly, however, developers have their own in-game currency, and make Credits one of the ways users can buy thatcurrency.
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In a key move, Facebook made Facebook Credits or payments mandatory for all game developers accepting payments as of July 1, 2011.
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Facebook Credits has faced some unpopularity among game developers, who are used to managing their own in-game virtual currencies and taking a larger cut of the revenues.
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It was a European vacation Vanek credits for rekindling his passion for the game and helping him rediscover his scoring touch.
For Facebook to hit the 20-30% mark in the near future, Credits would have to be on nearly every social game.
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For Facebook, such deals with the most successful game companies on its social network are a way to make Credits the standard for all games and applications.
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These issues are simply more important than issues of reallocating and redistributing resources, however much skin we all have in the game as recipients of government benefits, subsidies, or tax credits.
This is because Facebook announced this month that from July, all game developers on Facebook will have to process payments through Facebook Credits, which is used in more than 350 games and applications like Farmville and Bejweled Blitz.
Quebec offers tax credits covering up to 37.5% of video game labour expenses, and Ontario up to 40%.
Literally millions of consumers have been using the credits for about a year now to supplement their social game experiences.
Facebook Credits has finally completed its collection of all the major social game companies, signing deals with Zynga, Crowdstar, Playdom (Disney), and now gaming giant Electronic Arts.
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