When I first started playing with GamerSafe I found it to be a great service. Simple to use, simple to implement, it looked like the perfect way to add achievements and monetize my game. But everything isn't always as it seems. As I delved deeper into the world of Facebook development I realized that my original enthusiasm might have been a bit misguided.

First off I would like to say that GamerSafe is a great service, with a simple implementation path and great online tools. I was able to add achievements to my game in just a few simple steps. Adding items to sell in your game was just as easy, and the more I played with the service the more I liked it. It seemed to be a match made in heaven.

Two weeks ago, I dropped the GamerSafe code from my game.

When I first imagined my game, I had built it up as a Facebook game, and the two APIs didn't play well together. In the end, I abandoned GamerSafe for one reason - it was a second login for players. I decided that having access to the broad Facebook market was my primary goal on this project, so I had to let GamerSafe go.

In my opinion, GamerSafe is better suited to games meant to be distributed to portals, or that will be deployed on stand-alone sites. This isn't to say that you can't use GamerSafe on a Facebook game, but I wanted to be able to add my achievements into the player's news feed, and that meant recreating a lot of the achievement content I was already putting in.

The final reason I dropped GamerSafe from Knaves Online is that I decided to try out Offerpal as my key source of revenue. Recent research has shown that more players would be willing to take part in a survey than outright buy virtual goods, so it seemed like a good fit.

I intend to go back to GamerSafe at some point, perhaps even with a light version of Knaves, because I truly believe it's a great product. Just not for the game I'm building right now.