Facebook establishes virtual currency for its annoying games, strikes deal with ESPN to create even more annoying games  

Gamasutra is reporting that Facebook and Zynga—the publisher behind such time-sucks as FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and FishVille—have reached an agreement that allows Facebook to proceed with plans to establish its Facebook Credits currency across all of the game apps using the site as a platform. The two companies had been at odds over the networking giant’s plans, likely due to Facebook’s intention to take a whopping 30-percent cut per transaction. Across their many games, Zynga boasts 230 million monthly active users—which, to put that into perspective, is about 70 million shy of the entire population of the US, and about half of Facebook’s total users, meaning Facebook can’t simply ignore them (like it does, say, its users’ privacy preferences). The details of the agreement—including what, exactly, Zynga gets out of it—have not been announced, though it’s suspected Facebook has given the company free advertising in exchange.

Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter mentions in its coverage of this morning’s ESPN upfronts that the sports network has signed a deal with Playdom, makers of the social network game Mobsters. The deal includes plans to create branded games both for social networking sites and the companies’ sites, so soon you can look forward to having your walls spammed by friends who need your help getting that last two-point conversion.