China’s internet censors may have kept most of the nation’s 420 million web users from accessing Facebook, but they have not stopped social game developers like Ellison Gao.

Five Minutes, a Shanghai-based studio co-founded by Ms Gao, 27, launched its first social game two years ago and has attracted millions of dollars from investors, including US venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

“It is impossible for any Chinese developer to ignore the Facebook market, just as it is for all the other social game firms across the globe,” Gao told AFP at an industry forum last week.

More than a million users play his studio’s games each day on Facebook, the firm’s biggest market, although it has also moved onto local platforms in Brazil, Japan, and South Korea, Mr Gao said.

Social games, which are usually free to play, are one of Facebook’s most popular features. Games such as Zynga’s FarmVille, in which users interact as they manage virtual farms, have become global hits.

Developers and social networking websites share revenue they generate from selling virtual goods and in-game advertising.