Maker of Famous Facebook Game Farmville has launched their own Games website “zynga.com” for allowing the Game players to play their favorite Games directly on their website.
Until now, players of Zynga’s games, such as Mafia Wars and CityVille, have only been able to play these games on third-party sites such as Facebook.
Zynga generates revenue by selling virtual Goods in Facebook. And, more than 30 percent of the revenue will go to the Facebook. By launching its own website Zynga is trying to get the bargaining power getting major share of the revenue.
Reed Shaffner, lead product manager of Zynga.com, said: “Zynga.com is going to give us a more direct relationship with players…Facebook is not a home just for games.”
As part of the initial roll out, Zynga will debut the beta release of Zynga.com, the company’s new destination for social games. In addition to serving up popular Zynga games, Zynga.com will let players discover and play social games created by third party game developers. These Platform partners will be able to reach new audiences and make their games even more social.
“We built Zynga.com to give our players more ways to connect with each other and play great social games whether built by Zynga or other talented developers,” said Mark Pincus, founder and CEO, Zynga. “Together with our platform partners, we look forward to bringing more play to the world on our platform.”
However, Zynga.com is still deeply tied to the social network, as all players can only login using their Facebook account details.
Zynga.com has also opened up its platform to games developers, so that third-parties can create and publish new games on the site.
The initial beta release of Zynga.com features:
- zFriends – Connect and play with more people, beyond your Facebook friends, who love to play as much as you do.
- More Games – Five of Zynga’s top games – CastleVille, Words With Friends, CityVille, Hidden Chronicles and Zynga Poker – will be accessible on the site at launch, but soon you will be able to discover and play more social games by Zynga and third party game developers.
- Social Stream – Get real-time access to items needed to advance faster in games by posting to Zynga’s live social stream without ever leaving your game board.
- Player Profile – A profile that is all about the way you play, highlighting your favorite games, top zFriends, recent activity and your helpfulness score to see how you stack up against friends.
- Live Chat – Without leaving the game board, you can also chat with zFriends in real-time to send gifts, strategize, or just say ‘OMG, look at the size of that beastie!’
Zynga raised $1bn in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) last December, and now it attracts 240 million monthly active users.
