Facebook creates dedicated European games team

Facebook has announced it will be adding a team dedicated to working with European games developers.

Facebook already has such a team in the US, and the move is designed to support the success of European developers like Wooga, King.com, Supercell and Nordeus, who have managed to secure their own niche in the market with games unique to those offered by social gaming companies like Zynga.

The European team will be focusing on teaching developers about Facebook’s mobile applications platform, launched in October 2011.

Users can now find games through Facebook’s mobile apps, giving developers new ways to advertise, and more opportunities to convert gamers into paying customers.

"In the US, we have a team of engineers, product managers and partnerships folks who only do gaming, from Zynga down to two-person shops. Now we’re creating that same unit in Europe too," Christian Hernandez, director of EMEA business development and partnerships at Facebook, told The Guardian.

He claims Europe is "the most interesting region in terms of the innovation on top of the Facebook platform in gaming."

These European companies have helped propel Facebook into what he calls a "third generation" of games, which have combined the casual, social, and world-building games like FarmVille that dominated the second generation of Facebook Games.

"King.com was a highly successful casual gaming company doing quite well, but they have changed the whole company strategy to focus on social gaming," said Hernandez.

"They went from not being on Facebook at all to being in the top developers. And Wooga came onto the platform after Zynga was big, but focused very specifically on social casual games, and managed to become the number two player on the platform – all from Berlin, rather than from Silicon Valley."