Facebook Ditches Credits In Favor Of Real Money

Facebook is launching subscription payments and local currency support for in-app payments, while getting rid of Facebook Credits.

According to Facebook’s Credits page (pictured above), only 852 people liked Credits anyway.

“With subscriptions, you can establish a recurring revenue stream and offer updated content or premium experiences for a monthly fee,” says Facebook’s Prashant Fuloria in a post on the company’s Developer Blog.

Fuloria says the local currency pricing is a direct result of games implementing their own currencies since Facebook introduced Credits in 2009. Apps will be able to process Dollars, Pounds, Yen, etc.) rather than credits.

“By supporting pricing in local currency, we hope to simplify the purchase experience, give you more flexibility, and make it easier to reach a global audience of Facebook users who want a way to pay for your apps and games in their local currency,” he says. “With local pricing, you will be able to set more granular and consistent prices for non-US users and price the same item differently on a market-by-market basis.”

Subscriptions will launch next month, and will be available for all Facebook.com and mobile web apps. Local currency support for in-app payments will be rolled out in the next few months.

Facebook says it will convert any existing Credit balances to local currency.

It will be quite interesting to see if Facebook apps generate significantly more revenue with the new systems in place.