Jan 25, 2011 10:53 GMT  ·  By

Facebook has finally made the move everyone's been expecting and some dreading, Facebook Credits will become mandatory for games on the social network. Users will only be able to get their money into games via Credits for the ones that use Facebook's Canvas platform. This will be implemented starting July 1st.

"Starting July 1st, we will require all social game developers on the Facebook canvas platform to process payments through Facebook Credits," Deb Liu, a platform marketing manager at Facebook announced.

"All developers keep 70% of the revenue from virtual goods transactions using Facebook Credits," she explained.

"Although we are not requiring developers to use Facebook Credits as their sole in-game currency, we are offering special incentives to those who do," she added.

Essentially any 'native' Facebook game, i.e. not the ones just using Facebook Connect as a login method, will only be able to use Facebook Credits. Transactions can still use the games own virtual currency, but this can only be bought with Credits not directly by users.

Facebook says this should simplify things for users, since they will only have to buy Credits once. This means that users can distribute their virtual currency as they see fit, in any game they like. Of course, this also means that they get to spend it on Facebook alone.

For developers, Facebook says, Credits should drive up engagement since users will trust a common currency and would be easier to convince to part with their virtual credits than with their real money.

Of course, the main reason for all of this is all the money from virtual items and in-game purchases that Facebook was missing out on. Facebook takes a 30 percent cut out of every Credits transaction.

The social network already has deals with most of the big players, Zynga, Playdom, Playfish and so on. In fact, Facebook says 70 percent of the virtual transactions money goes through Credits already.