Zynga may launch its own social gaming platform, with Facebook affected

Zynga will launch its own social gaming platform.

Social game developer Zynga said in Thursday that the company would launch its own social gaming platform, allowing users to play games on the company's website rather than on Facebook, which could lead to a decline in traffic on Facebook sites. Facebook is Zynga's biggest partner.

The service is by far the boldest move by Zynga to create its own social gaming network outside of Facebook. Currently, 93% of Zynga's revenue comes from Facebook.

Zynga said today that its redesigned web site will be online by the end of March, and that the revamped site will improve the user's ability to play games and have instant chat and message boards to help players. Zynga's five most popular games will be landing on the revamped site, such as Castlevillecityville and words with friends.

"The best thing is that when you want to play games with people who like social games, they don't need to be on your Facebook buddy list," says COO John Sabert of Zynga. But he also said that the so-called "Zynga platform" (Zynga Platform) will be closely linked to Facebook, users still need to use their Facebook ID login. In addition, all sales activities from virtual items in the game will be paid using the Facebook virtual currency Facebook credits, such as houses or other items.

Facebook, with 845 million users, currently has 30% of its revenue from Facebook credits. Zynga executives declined to comment on whether the company would sell items on its own platform in the future, rather than sharing it with Facebook. Playing Zynga and EA-produced games is one of the most popular activities for Facebook users. In a regulatory filing filed in February, Facebook said the company's revenue from Zynga accounted for 12% of its total revenue.

Mannuel Bronstein Bronstein, general manager of the Zynga.com website, said the new site was not designed to move users from Facebook to the site, but to help users differentiate their Facebook identities from their game habits, while narrowing the relationship between Zynga and users.

Zynga's new website will also provide games from other companies, which could lead to more revenue for the company. Among them, Florida State game developers Row Sham Bow and San Diego game developers Mobscience games are likely to land on the new site, the former developed a woodland heroes (forest hero) of the Facebook game, the latter developed a named coffee Bar (coffee bar) of the Facebook game.

Brownstein said the platform had made Zynga, which was listed in the IPO last December, closer to its previously set target of 1 billion subscribers. Currently, Zynga has a monthly subscriber number of 240 million people. This latest service will be available in 16 languages, such as Chinese Korean, Japanese and German, and will not be available on mobile devices for the time being.