Facebook: 'We Don't Spend A Lot Of Time' Worrying About Google+

Author: by Frank Cifaldi, Brandon Sheffield

Many saw Google's recently-launched social gaming platform as a threat to the 200 million monthly players Facebook has amassed, but according to Facebook's director of games partnerships Sean Ryan, the two can peacefully co-exist. "Developers should go where they think they can make the most money," he said at a Gamasutra-attended roundtable at Facebook's corporate headquarters on Friday. "We don’t spend a lot of time worrying about them, we worry about us." Ryan addressed criticism on the two platforms' wildly divergent revenue splits (Facebook takes a 30 percent cut, while Google takes only 5 for the initial period) by saying that that Facebook's platform is simply worth more, saying that Google is only taking a small cut because "they don't have any users!" "We believe through our distribution, our audience, and our virality, that that’s worth a certain revenue split," he said. “At the end of the day, it's whether [developers get] a certain percentage of a large number, or a certain percentage of a small number.” “We see competition around the world. What I’d say is in classic fashion Google has emulated our system, which is what they’re inclined to do," Ryan added. "And we just need to be better as a platform. At the end of the day, people will go to what they thing is the right platform. So revenue split is one of those factors. We’re the leader, there’s no question. But we can be better.” Ryan also criticized Google for being an investor in social game makers, implying that the company could show favoritism to those it has a stake in. "We’re not an investor in Zynga like Google is, or like Google is in Kabam, or an owner of Slide. We’re not. We’re an open platform. We run the most open platform around," he said, adding that Facebook doesn't "favor developers over other developers. We’re not there to grow specific developers." Ryan denied previous reports of an exclusivity deal that favored Zynga, saying that all of its developers are treated equally. "We’re not an investor in the company. Google is," he said. "Where do you think the favoritism is going to be?"