Google is getting into gaming with the addition of a new Games button to its Google+ social networking site. This means that that Googlers can share the same experience as their nonplussed friends at Facebook, growing turnips, killing Mafiosi, catapulting birds at dilapidated structures, and all sorts of other fun things that give meaning to the internet experience.

They will be working with several game makers, including Zynga, the multi-billion dollar game maker that got its start through the Facebook platform. It’s beneficial to Google, which will be co-opting the very games that helped drive rival Facebook’s popularity, and it will be beneficial to Zynga, which will be able to assert greater independence from Facebook by having other platforms to play on. Of course, Google+’s 25 million users is hardly Facebook’s 800 million, but with the possibility of playing there, more users may opt to toy with the site.

There are certain advantages too, which Google+ offers. For one thing, game related statuses will not pop up automatically on Google+ as they do on Facebook. Then there is the money angle.

Zynga’s revenue is based on in-game transactions, and Facebook takes a hefty 30 percent cut from these. In an effort to woo game developers, Google has said that it will only take five percent, which is a substantial difference for game-makers. Google does admit that the five percent commission is promotional and that it is likely to go up, but with such a disparity, they can still undercut Facebook when the time comes to raise the commission.

Or they could get into a bidding war with Facebook over who takes less of a commission. If they do that there is no doubt that game-makers from Zynga on down will be the ones to benefit.

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