上周三，我们报导过Zynga公司将Facebook Credits作为旗下游戏的专用虚拟货币，这一决定似乎使Fecebook Credits离自己独霸社交游戏领域虚拟货币市场的目标又迈进了一步。那么，目前Credits离这他们的伟大目标还有多远呢？

现在Facebook已经开始悄悄地加快Facebook Credits的推广步伐，越来越多的游戏开发公司与Facebook达成了合作协议。这一发展的背后Facebook Credit的市场份额是否真的同样发展迅猛呢？

据Facebook公司数据称，目前总计有70家游戏开发公司，150款社交游戏游戏使用Facebook Credits。然而这一数据并无法满足Credits的早期目标。市面上游戏开发公司和社交游戏不计其数，如果Facebook Credits想成为众多社交游戏唯一通用的虚拟货币，Facebook必须将其扩大到所有主流社交游戏中。

而根据我们的调查显示：从普及角度来说，Facebook目前的发展已经超越了自身预计的程度，80%的英语Facebook游戏玩家都开始使用Facebook Credits虚拟货币。

针对这一次Credits调查，我们主要对AppData排行榜上前100名游戏的虚拟货币使用情况进行了统计分析。分析过程中，由于Credits还没有完全实现国际化，我们的统计对象仅仅局限于英语应用——虽然现在许多中国游戏开发公司由于面向大量的西方客户也极有可能会使用Facebook Credits，但在这次统计中我们排除了这一可能性。此外，本次统计还排除了部分并不具有支付功能的应用程序。

在首次统计的结果中，Facebook Credits并没有显示出压倒性的优势。在排行榜前100款游戏中，仅有60款使用了Credits，而其中更只有33款将Facebook Credits作为专用虚拟货币。这33款应用大部分属于Zynga公司。

Credits 1

据上图显示，大部分排名在前100的社交游戏已经使用Facebook Credits，但这还足以令Facebook完全占领虚拟货币领域。因此，我们要从另一角度分析Credits的使用情况：计算月活跃用户和日活跃用户在Facebook网站使用Facebook Credits的情况。

Credits 2

根据上图，我们可以看出排名前100的社交游戏中，80%的月活跃用户及85%的日活跃用户正在使用Credits。

在针对日活跃用户或月活跃用户的统计中，超过50%的游戏玩家使用Credits作为现金支付方式。在这一环境下，越来越多的Facebook用户都会加入到这一行列中。

以上数据只是对Facebook Credit的短期统计。不久的将来，Credits将吸引更多的Facebook游戏玩家。

据我们所知，现在已经有一些公司声称即将像Playdom或Rockyou公司一样将Credits作为专属虚拟货币。此外，EA公司也表达了类似意向。

随着Credits的市场份额的提高，即便Facebook没有强制要求游戏开发公司使用Credits，各公司也会自觉使用Credits——这不仅是游戏平台的要求，而且游戏玩家也希望自己的Credits可以在各种游戏中通用。

最后，一个有趣的现象是：在排名前100的社交游戏中有13款直接把Credits作为游戏的内置虚拟货币，而没有命名货币名称（如FarVille中的Farm Cash）——有些人认为这一方法可以令游戏玩家更自由的使用虚拟货币。如果Credits真有如人们所预计的庞大发展力的话，这一做法或许将打开社交游戏领域的又一片广阔天地。

Since our story last Wednesday about Zynga’s switch to exclusively using Facebook Credits in its games, the inevitability of a Credits-only platform has seemed closer than ever. But how close has Facebook actually gotten to its goal?

That question is an important one because Facebook has paced its rollout of Credits with the quiet and (to the public eye) willing adoption of the virtual currency by one game developer after another. Whether or not it’s acting more forcefully behind the scenes may be academic; Facebook has either way migrated a large number of companies to Credits, even though it hasn’t made the currency officially mandatory.

By Facebook’s own count, it has 70 developers and 150 games using Credits in some form. However, that doesn’t tell the whole story of Credits’ early reach. There are thousands of games and hundreds of developers; for Credits to become the sole dominant currency, Facebook needs to have them on the most prominent games.

Our own findings: Facebook has gone even father in terms of reach than its own accounts suggest, with over 80 percent of players of English-language Facebook games currently exposed to Credits.

We looked into the issue by building a curated list of the top 100 games on the AppData leaderboard. Since Credits aren’t yet fully international, we didn’t count apps developed in languages other than English — although it should be noted that several Chinese developers, who may have Western audiences, use them anyway. Since a number of apps don’t incorporate any virtual currency at all, we didn’t count them either.

The results don’t look overwhelming at first. Out of the top 100 games, 60 use Credits, while 33 use them exclusively, counting Zynga’s recently-changed apps:

So a clear majority of games among the top 100 have Credits, but not enough that Facebook can claim total domination. For that, we need another view of the data.

The best way to see how deeply Credits have penetrated Facebook is by counting up the monthly and daily active user counts (MAU and DAU) of the games using them:

Those numbers translate to well over 80 percent of the MAUs in the top 100 games (which dominate most of the app traffic to all games) using Credits, and over 85 percent of the DAUs.

Measuring by either MAU or DAU, over 50 percent of the players on these top games are using Credits as their only payment currency. If Facebook game players aren’t already aware of what Credits are and how to use them, they soon will be.

These stats are just a snapshot of the moment. Before long, Credits will have an even firmer lock over Facebook’s game players.

Some companies that have told us that they will switch to using Credits exclusively, like Playdom and RockYou, but haven’t yet made the switch on all their apps; further, we’ve also heard that the last holdout in the top five, Electronic Arts, will switch to using Credits exclusively as well.

Even if Facebook never explicitly forces Credits on developers, the pressure to change will become palpable — not just from the platform, but from players who get used to carrying their Credits from game to game.

One more interesting stat that surfaced: 13 of the 100 games actually use Credits as their premium in-game virtual currency, rather than having a currency with a proprietary name (like Farm Cash) — a choice that some say can encourage players to spend more freely. Such choices will become an interesting frontier in social gaming, if Credits have the positive effects that some have predicted.(Source: Inside Social Games)