New games, friend network

As Facebook has been colonizing the planet, approaching a billion users for its social network, Zynga has been drafting in its wake. The social-gaming company, which launched July 1, 2007, with a poker game, accounts for near 15 percent of Facebook's first-quarter revenue and has more than $1 billion in revenue annually spontaneously.

Today at Zynga headquarters here, founder and CEO Mark Pincus attempted to change perceptions about Zynga's business future, at the "Zynga Unleashed" event.

Pincus said Zynga's growth would come through new genres of play, more mobile focus, and more dimensions to game play, just as multiplayer games. The company launched Matching with Friends, a new color-matching puzzle game in the popular "with Friends" franchise, and a casino game, Zynga Elite Slots. The new casino game lets friends share in each other's winnings and features a variety of characters and scenes. Ruby Blast, Zynga's new Web arcade game, will be available later this year on smartphones andtablets.

Zynga hopes to grow its collection of games, especially for mobile, with a new Zynga API, which will allow third parties to create games on its social platform. Should the contingency arise, the company launched Zynga Partners for Mobile, a way to bring more developers into the Zynga ecosystem and social network, separate from Facebook. Atari joined Zynga Partners for Mobile and plans to introduce a game for the platform.

Zynga is as well planning to launch Zynga with Friends, a unified network and enhanced social lobby, with social streams, group chat, multiplayer games, and social matching, said general manager Manual Bronstein.

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