I went to see Prometheus last night. Weird movie. Pretty good. Creepy. Anyway, it takes place late this century and two of the astronauts make a bet involving “credits” instead of dollars. Credits are also how Facebook has been handling in-app purchases on things like Farmville so my immediate thought was, “My god, in this vision of the future, FACEBOOK HAS TAKEN OVER THE WORLD.”
Well, not so fast, space movie. Facebook has now ended its Credits program.
Facebook says the system was too confusing, says the BBC:
Members were encouraged to buy large sums at one time by the promise of discounts – for example 50 credits cost $5 (£3.20) but 2,360 credits cost $200, representing what the firm termed an “18% bonus”.
However, third-party developers tended to subsequently convert Credits into their own in-game currencies, making it harder for users to keep track of what they were spending.
So you had users spending dollars to get credits that got converted into something else. That would make me not want to spend dollars at all. Facebook, as you may have heard, would very much like people to spend money so that the company can get money in the door. Henceforth, local currency will be used.
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