Electronic Arts (EA) and Facebook have signed a five-year agreement that makes Facebook Credits the exclusive payment method for EA games on the social-networking site.

"Since gaming has emerged as the most popular category of applications on Facebook, the natural next step is for EA to broaden our relationship with Facebook and its 500 million users," Barry Cottle, EA Interactive's senior vice president and general manager, said in a statement. "Our goal is to make the best games tailored specifically to the platforms on which people want to play."

EA said that its games "Pet Society" and "Restaurant City," from EA division Playfish, are consistently two of the top 10 games played on Facebook daily. The company has also recently introduced more games to Facebook, including "Monopoly," a game that EA said has sold more than 275 million copies worldwide since 1935. EA has also launched football and soccer games on Facebook, and its "Pogo" game is currently in beta on the site.

"We are pleased to enter into this long-term partnership with EA to make it easier for people to purchase virtual goods across some of the most popular games on Facebook," Dan Rose, Facebook's vice president of partnerships and platform marketing, said in the release. "Playfish has a great reputation for building high-quality games on Facebook, and we look forward to working even more closely with them and the larger team at EA."

Facebook Credits is the online currency method used to pay for premium items in games on Facebook. It was recently expanded to include more payment options and to invite more developers to be a part of the program. As is standard of the credits program, Facebook will give EA 70 percent of profits earned on the site.