ISA 2012: Facebook, Apple, Google – Which Platforms Hold the Most Opportunity in 2012?

Today at the Inside Social Apps Conference 2012 in San Francisco, game developers discussed which platforms hold the most promise in 2012.
Kevin Chou, CEO and co-founder of Kabam felt that the popular Facebook platform has become more challenging because ad prices have gone up 18 percent and because Facebook’s payments platform, Facebook Credits, charges a 30 percent revenue share. “We thought that conversions would go up and be around 15 or 20 percent, but it turned out to be around 5 to 10 percent, meaning that we’re taking a 20 percent net tax,” he said.
Jens Begemann, founder and CEO of Wooga has seen his user base grow to 40 million monthly average users, which is three times as many as the company had a year ago. The European game developer recently launched “Diamond Dash” and “Magic Land” on Facebook, and has been very happy with overall growth on the platform.
Bengemann also noted that the performance-based model is better than having to pay development costs upfront. Besides, no one seems to complain about Apple’s iOS taking 30 percent of the proceeds. ”It’s really Apples to Apples,” he quipped.
Added Anil Dharni, co-founder of Funzio, ”We have seen amazing uptake on the iPad.” Apple has an advantage over Android because of the user experience on the iPad tablet. “We are hoping Google figures out the tablet soon,” he said.
But John Spinale, the senior vice president of social games at Disney, has seen “incredible revenue growth on Android,” he said. Although the current focus is on Facebook and Apple’s iOS platform, the company is placing strategic bets on Android and Google+. ”Android is a little bit unwieldy and has more overhead,” he said, “but the revenue is meaningful enough that it’s worth the pain of doing.”