Monday, March 28, 2011

3 Issues to Avoid When Developing a New Facebook Game

Nowadays, many companies throughout various industries are developing Facebook games and applications to increase their social media presence. For example, the Boston Celtics develop their own Facebook game to engage with their Facebook fans. As highlighted by recent examples, there are some issues you should avoid when developing and maintaining a Facebook Game. This article highlights three issues you should avoid in order to retain your Facebook fan-base.

Firstly, a consistent customer support system is essential in order to maintain the fans' level of satisfaction. When I made a fan blog for Frontierville, a popular game developed by Zynga, I received an overwhelming level of complaints from Frontierville users who experienced various technical issues (you can now see that the game's popularity is increasing dramatically). Make sure your customer support is prepared for the worst case scenario. The initial beta stage of your Facebook game is possibly the most important stage of the life cycle. You need to keep your fans well-informed about various bugs and updates.

You should avoid the privacy issue at all cost. Many Facebook users have complained that some of the Facebook games require access to too much information. For example, users will be skeptical about a simple Facebook game (e.g. snake) if it requires access to all personal information on Facebook. So how do you avoid causing privacy concerns among your Facebook Fans? Firstly, only take information that your application really needs. Secondly, create a separate page that provides basic information on how you are going to use the data collected through your Facebook Page. Try and be as transparent as possible with your customers.

Lastly, do not over-complicate your game. Facebook games are not appropriate for high-end gaming which requires good graphic processors. If you are looking to utilize an online multi-player system then make sure your servers are going to be able to handle all incoming bandwidth. Keeping your game's performance streamline is key in retaining your Facebook Fans.

Why should you develop a Facebook game? Firstly, it is a great way to engage with your fans. You don't want to limit your Facebook fan engagement to just discussions. What kind of games work well with viral marketing? If you observe the top ten gaming application, they all have competitive elements incorporated into the game play. The graphics do not have to be complex. Even a classic old-school game like snake attracted over one hundred thousand users by including a leaders scoreboard at the bottom.

Want to read more about Facebook and Internet Marketing? Find more Internet Business Ideas by visiting the Author's blog.

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