Hot on the heels of last week’s announcement of SOE’s entry to Facebook gaming, as well as EA’s growing catalogue of Facebook titles (with an obvious nod to Plyfish), Capcom is now following suit, with Bloomberg Businessweek reporting that the Osaka, Japan publisher is now setting their sites on Facebook as well.

“Gaming on social networks is poised to impact the traditional video game industry and is a presence that cannot be ignored,” Capcom President Haruhiro Tsujimoto said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday. “We have to make our move.”

JP Morgan Chase & Co. analyst Eiji Maeda comments, “Once seen as a realm of low-profit, cheap games, this market is maturing into an attractive proposition for major publishers.” Currently, Capcom generates more than half of its revenue from traditional ‘boxed’ titles. Maeda’s comments ring true, when looking forward. You’ll remember, earlier this week the Newzoo report indicated that the majority of revenues in both the U.S. and Europe are still derived from boxed game sales. However, as technology, especially delivery and payment methods improve, all this could change. “Companies that forgo games playable online, including on social networks, will be left behind as the market for packaged software shrinks long term,” says Maeda.

And while this seems to fall right in line with what other major players are doing/realizing, i.e. SOE, EA, etc.., it does however fly in the face of what current Facebook gaming king of the hill Zynga is doing. With the recent change in notification mechanisms at Facebook, Zynga has seen a significant loss of users over the past few weeks, and they’re taking action to combat it.

Zynga’s most popular title, FarmVille has been hit hardest, and the San Francisco based game development firm has been quietly pulling users off Facebook and directing them to play their favorite farming game on Zynga’s own platform(s). Having this independence and freedom has had some notable advantages for Zynga, most notably, their own currency form, and ability to cross promote their own titles, all the while, not being at the mercy of an outside party.

And therein lies the catch-22 for games developers. While Facebook gives them massive exposure, more or less for free, Facebook now wants a slice of the action (a 30 percent tax on sales made with Facebook’s own impending network wide virtual currency), and as owners of the platform, can make any changes they see fit. With more and more ‘traditional’ gaming companies now setting their sites on Facebook, the Palo Alto firm is now in a position to flex their muscle, reap the financial rewards of welcoming major players, with major budgets, into the fold. But at what cost? Is it enough to simply thank the Zynga’s of Facebook for making the social network also a social gaming platform, and push them aside in the name of more revenue?