Facebook Replacing Credits With Local Currency Payments API
Facebook has announced that they are replacing Facebook Credits, the current app payment system, with a local currency payments API, giving developers until September 12th 2013 to switch their apps over.
Additionally, Facebook will be deprecating Payer Promotions for Facebook Credits in the next few months in favour of Payer Promotions for local currency. Facebook-sponsored support for TrialPay offers will also be deprecated, but “TrialPay will continue to support these for Facebook & our developers by offering a direct integration solution for developers”.
Facebook has given developers plenty of time to adjust to the changes, 8 days more than they promised when the update was mentioned in March. Software Engineer Yongyan Liú lists the benefits the improvements will have for developers in the announcement post:
- Set prices for in-game items by market so users in different countries see the most marketable prices relevant to their currency.
- Cache static prices with Facebook and remove the blocking server request to collect item information at time of purchase, improving your app's performance. Optionally, the pricing callback can still be used to price items dynamically, giving you full flexibility when deciding how to price your items.
- Realize additional reduced latency as a result of fewer server requests for payment completion, like the second server request to confirm order fulfillment and real-time updates to confirm the transaction.
That said, for many developers the transfer from credit to local currency will not be a particularly easy one, which is why Facebook has given them so much time to adjust. Liú has also published some best practices in the announcement post to help developers make the change:
- International pricing – To determine which currencies to support in pricing your items, consider using the App Insights tool to understand which users currently frequent your app and from what countries. More information can be found on our best practices page.
- In-game currency – We highly encourage you to create your own in-game currency to maintain your app’s economy and flexibly change currency packages whenever you want. This gives you more control over the pricing of your in-game items. More information can be found on our best practices page.
- Mobile specific store - To support the best payment experience for users who wish to pay with mobile, we suggest creating a mobile specific store that allows you to optimally price items and determine quantity according to fixed carrier price points. This will ensure your users are not subject to additional transaction fees because of these price points. More information can be found on our best practices page.
- A/B testing – In an effort to make it easier for developers to migrate, we have created a simple API that allows you to test the new payment dialog and roll it out incrementally to random groups of users. This will let you compare the legacy Credits system side-by-side with the new local currency one to ensure the migration will be a good experience for you and your users. More information can be found in our testing documentation.
Do you think a local currency payments API will improve app transactions?
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Facebook Replacing Credits With Local Currency Payments API
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