Facebook Instant Credits Are Tripling Virtual Goods Sales For OMGPOP

Now that Facebook will require all games on the social network to use Facebook Credits , it is adding new features to encourage players to spend money on virtual goods. At the Inside Social Apps conference a couple days ago, Facebook announced new features to help grease the wheels of its budding virtual economy. One of these features is "frictionless micropayments," or instant credits, which allows players to buy up to 30 credits in-game without having to stop the game, and even without having to enter a credit card number. One game developer, OMGPOP , is already using it as part of the beta, and it is working out great. OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter tells me that "Facebook credits drives higher transaction volume on Facebook—especially the instant credits." He adds that " because of instant credits we are seeing a higher than usual conversion rate, probably 3 times higher than a standard Facebook game, but the transaction value is lower because there are fewer items and they are priced less." So it is tripling the number of virtual goods it is selling, but not the dollar amount.