At the Social Gaming Summit in London last week Julien Codorniou gave the opening keynote with the title “the power of the graph”. As Head of Platform Partnerships at Facebook Julien stressed the potential of HTML5, talked about the growing importance of European social gaming companies and shared what game genre he expects to be booming in the close future. We also talked to Julien about the most current developments and perspectives.

Julien Codorniou, European Head of Gaming Partnerships

Strategy as a platform

Facebook does not develop any own games. This will not change in the future. Facebook’s strategy is to create a platform for developers to grow on and monetize via the 30% credits revenue share they receive from developers. Unlike some competitors, it is not Facebook’s strategy to acquire or in invest in social gaming companies. “We don’t want to compete with our own partners. We see more opportunities as a platform, so we put all our energy into building the best possible platform for developers,” Julien concludes. Facebook also does not restrict developers who have a stand-alone platform outside of Facebook. “Facebook provides the tools for developers to create a personalised experience on whatever platform they are using – on Facebook.com, the web or mobile. For example, look at music. Spotify is a great Facebook application – outside Facebook,” Julien adds.

Successful HTML5 launch

Julien’s resume of Facebook’s HTML5 was positive. Many developers already launched games in HTML5, amongst them Zynga and Wooga. Facebook is sending the message that the way to go for every game developer in the future is to build a game once with one technology and to be able to run it on every device. The opportunity of HTML5 and the Facebook platform for mobile is that “it brings social distribution where you had no social distribution before on the mobile internet”, Julien adds. Hence, especially gaming companies that start from scratch should build on HTML5. Indeed, most companies believe in the technology. The question is rather when it will become a standard.

Next growth genre: casino games

Facebook’s dedication to the technology could not be communicated any clearer: “If I had to start a company tomorrow, it would be an HTML5 gaming company focusing on the Facebook platform.” But this is not the only advice Julien shared. He also explained that right now he would focus on HTML5 casino games on Facebook. Casino games appear to be an underrepresented in the Facebook gaming portfolio. A possible reason is that casino games on the open web enable a user to win and cash out real money – a feature that Facebook does not offer with its Credits system. Although Facebook users play casino games just for fun, this genre is highly lucrative. “We see casino games on Facebook today and the monetization numbers are just unbelievable,” Julien explains.

Opportunity in fantasy sports games and religious games

It is in Facebook’s interest to bring diversity to its game portfolio. Other underserved gaming genres on Facebook right now are fantasy sports games or religious games, according to Julien. Especially religious games are highly interesting. The potentially interested target group is huge and other mass media goods on religion like music, books or TV channels are extremely popular. “So why not games?” he asks.

Europe on the move

A positive trend that seems to continue is the European social game developers landscape itself. Today, the top positions in the developer charts are pretty mixed between European and American companies – a very different picture from one or two years ago.

The creativity in Berlin, Barcelona, Belgrade or Paris is enormous. There is no gorilla but rather smaller companies. Julien stated to be “very optimistic for the European social gaming ecosystem” – and rightfly so.

The next Zynga

Julien did not want to comment specifically who could become the best candidate to push Zynga off the throne. It is also unclear whether it will be a new or an existing company. The success of The Sims on Facebook shows that there is a chance for existing companies. Also, some companies that target a mid-core and hardcore gaming audience monetize well and grow rapidly.

For Facebook it does not matter who beats whom, as the company profits from every developer to the same extend. As Julien points out, it is rather in Facebook’s focus to facilitate the growth of every developer. “Zynga is said to be a 20 billion dollar company. I am sure we will see other billion dollar social gaming companies in the future.”