'Facebook Credits' to Be Mandatory for Games

Kiss your Farmville Coins goodbye. Facebook is telling game developers that in 5 months they’ll be required to use Facebook Credits as their only means of charging users for their games, TechCrunch reports. Developers could theoretically still create in-game currencies like the aforementioned Farm Coins, but users would have to buy them with Facebook Credits instead of directly with dollars.

To further push their new currency, Facebook will promote items sold in credits on its Games dashboard, and make them eligible for targeted ad programs. For now, the fiat applies only to games, but the plan is to eventually transition all apps to Facebook Credits. Big developers like Zynga, Playdom, Playfish, and CrowdStar are on board, and have tested the system in beta, but the company expects complaints from others, which is why, a spokesman says, it's announced the move so far in advance. For more, click here. (More Farmville stories.)