Facebook Indie Games

There just isn't much Indie action around Facebook games. Why not? I set out after some indie developers with zombie-like determination, to find out...

1. The API keeps changing. Facebook frequently changes the API, meaning that the techniques used to market games stop working -- or even that the game itself breaks and becomes unplayable. Integrating with Facebook's oft changing UI is a nightmare.
2. It's a winner takes all market. Zynga and the like have it all sewn up. Nobody else will make any money.
3. You have to pay for servers. And if your game takes off you could be looking at a very big bill.
4. Facebook games play on addiction. Indie developers are the moral type. They don't want to write games for the kind of addicts that can't keep away from Facebook. They'd prefer write them for the kind of addicts that can't put down their iPhone.
5. Facebook games are annoying. Who doesn't hate seeing Facebook game notifications in their Facebook feeds? Developers will lose all their indie cred if they touch Facebook.
6. No game portals have got any traction. So you can't distribute your games along with other Indie games. You have to build your own marketing channel, and...
7. Marketing is hard and expensive. To really get users you have to pay for advertising, and unless you've got somebody bank rolling your game that's a risky strategy.
8. Testing and debugging hell. To test the games you need either a load of fake Facebook accounts, or a load of willing friends. Either way, because the game is partly under Facebook's control you have to trust that their code won't break your work.
9. Facebook games are for girls. The top Facebook games are all childish dumb things like farming and running restaurants. I don't want a part of that!
10. What's the tenth reason? Add your own reason in the comments below.

Are these reasons good enough to ignore the biggest game playing market in the world today? Do you really think that Facebook gamers are so dumb that they won't enjoy thoughtful, creative social games? And if indie developers work together, can we overcome these problems? For example, groups of developers can help test each others games, share money making strategies, and keep abreast of API changes. What do you say?

Update: Now there's 9 Reasons Why Indie Devs Should Embrace Facebook Like Crazy too.