The most recent wave of reports on the Developer’s Forums have been focused around the numerous “Pacman” clones which have sprung up on Facebook in the past few days. The first report rolled into the forums this morning pointing out a sour point of contention with developers: incentivized invites. Since being reported, the application has been removed from Facebook. Interestingly, the developer of the application responded within the thread with claims of ignorance to the Platform Policies which all developers are required to agree with before being issued an API key.

However this isn’t the whole story. I had a chance to sit down and try one of the remaining clones still active on the Platform. I was required to authorize the application immediately, and while the application I tried (developed by Unit 501) was free of obvious errors and policy violations, the developer appeared to be utilizing a “round robin” type of promotion. That is, when you’ve used up all 3 lives in game, instead of being directed to a page containing your score, you are instead directed to another Pacman application, developed by the same author. You’ll have to reauthorize this application, too. The cycle then repeats itself.

This isn’t explicitly against the terms of service, but it does somewhat violates the “spirit of the policy” as this type of behavior is certainly not what a user would expect during a normal app experience. It would be especially abnormal if it were to redirect to other applications.

Not all of the Pacman applications on the Platform are bad news, though. I was able to find at least one which was well designed and had a thoughtful user experience. It had translations available in several languages, wans’t plastered in ads, and most ironically, had the fewest users of all the applications I looked at: 2,000 MAU, compared to the nearly 200,000 MAU for the Pacman application removed earlier today.

Obviously some developers have found these types of applications to be a decent source of income, albeit a short lived one. Facebook was quick to remove the obvious offender and offered this in reponse to the notion that they were slow on the draw:

“While we catch and remove most violations before you know about them, there are on some occasions violations which you are able to find first. The latter are by far more rare than the former. We encourage you to report these violations when you find them, and we have always showed our appreciation for your added vigilance.”

You can follow the discussion in the Developer’s Forum here.