While there has been a lot of speculation around the pros and cons of integrating Facebook Credits, CrowdStar’s early adoption has had the benefit of having its titles consistently appearing as featured games in the new Games Dashboard:

While the extra promotion might be considered a big plus, the three CrowdStar titles (Happy Aquarium, Happy Island and Happy Pets) and the two other popular games (Playdom’s Tiki Farm and Playfish’s Restaurant City) have not seen any bumps in Daily Active User numbers since the game dashboard was launched.

If Facebook Credits can’t drive a higher conversion rate and extra promotion doesn’t drive more traffic, Facebook may have to re-think the speculated 30% cut.

Speaking of Payment Systems…

Payment systems seem to be cropping up left and right, but one recent announcement by STi caught my eye: they have turned their prepaid calling cards that are in over 200,000 locations in the US into gift cards that can be used on social networks for virtual payments. While not a household name, neither are newbie offerings from Kwedit (in 5,800 7-11 stores) or Rixty (20,000 stores). Even Playspan’s Ultimate Game Card (46,000 stores as of November of last year) had only a quarter of the reach that STi already has in place. STi is definitely something to watch as it begins to integrate with partners.