Following in the footsteps of Zynga, Electronic Arts has just announced that it has entered into a five-year strategic relationship with Facebook. Similar to the Zynga deal, Facebook Credits will become the exclusive payment method in EA games on Facebook.
EA, which owns Zynga competitor Playfish, will enter into a 70-30 percent revenue share for Facebook Credits, according to a release. Playfish operates a number of popular social games on Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, and other social networks, including Pet Society, Restaurant City, Country Story and Who Has The Biggest Brain?
Pet Society and Restaurant City are two of the top 10 games on Facebook measured by daily active users, and EA also operates soccer and football games on the social network. Other Facebook games under the EA brand include Monopoly and Pogo.
While EA is giving 30 percent of its Credits revenues to Facebook, it’s likely that the company has cute a better deal on advertising with the social network, as was rumored to be the case with the Zynga deal. EA’s relatively late to the to the Credits game considering its presence in the social gaming ecosystem. Zynga’s deal was announced in the Spring of this year, and Playdom, CrowdStar and RockYou signed similar partnerships in July.
I’m also wondering if this announcement could somehow be related to a rumored new social gaming portal that Facebook is set to announce in mid-November.