GDC: Facebook 'paid $1.4bn to devs last year'

Game and app developers that publish their work through Facebook made about $1.4 billion in 2011, an executive at the social network has said.

At a GDC lecture in San Francisco on Monday, the company declared its determination to support more games developers across the Facebook network.

 “As early as 2010, we didn’t have a dedicated games team, but now we have 40 full-time people working on games,” Matt Wyndowe (pictured), a games product manager at Facebook, told attendees.

The Facebook games team meets with chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on a weekly basis, Wyndowe said, as quoted by Venturebeat.

It was not revealed how the $1.4 billion developer payout translates on a studio-by studio basis.

Facebook is looking to significantly bolster its fleet of game development partners, as its most prolific partner – Zynga – begins to edge away from the social network. As part of this plan, Facebook is establishing a European game development hub.