Zynga has added Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Playdemic and Rebellion to its roster of Zynga Platform partners, a relationship that makes games from these publishers available to players on Zynga.com.
The agreements were announced at Game Developers Conference 2012. Rob Dyer, head of platform partners at Zynga, said it was an honor to welcome “some of the best development talent in the industry.”
These three companies join the previously announced Mob Science, Row Sham Bow and Sava Transmedia as third parties using the new social gaming destination. No specific new titles were confirmed, although Dyer suggested Konami – the biggest of the partners – would be unveiling a surprise. Playdemic is best known for Gourmet Ranch and Crossword Buddies. Rebellion, the company behind Sniper Elite, said it was working on a social game.
Members of Zynga.com have their own networks of zFriends, people with whom to connect and play that are unrelated to a member’s Facebook friends, and the interface features a dedicated social stream, player profiles and live chat. Zynga partners can utilize its channels and features, including analytics that measure and drive social engagement, and back end technology designed to ensure scalability and availability.
Zynga.com is in beta, offering games that include the very popular CastleVille, Words with Friends, CityVille, Hidden Chronicles and Zynga Poker.
Each of the new partner companies released a statement regarding the deals.
Kazuhiko Uehara, corporate officer and senior vice president, Konami Digital Entertainment: “We are thrilled to partner with Zynga to bring Konami games to the heart of the gaming audience on Zynga.com and Facebook. This new partnership accelerates Konami’s continued success as a top global social games developer and underscores our commitment to provide high quality gaming experiences to the ever-growing social space. We look forward to working hand-in-hand with Zynga to create the best environment possible for playing social games.”
Paul Gouge, founder and CEO, Playdemic: “Our partnership with Zynga is not only a fantastic opportunity to grow the audience of Gourmet Ranch and Crossword Buddies, but also to work hand-in-hand with social gaming experts at the undisputed market leader. We have incredible talent at Playdemic and have already been successful on Facebook, but we know that working with Zynga will rapidly accelerate our growth and bring our games to more players.”
Jason Kingsley, CEO and creative director, Rebellion: “We’re very excited to be working with a company of Zynga’s caliber. Our goal is to bring Rebellion games to a broader audience while learning from Zynga’s mastery of the social gaming space. Through the Zynga Platform, we’ll release our first-ever social game. We can’t wait to show players what we’ve been working on.”
Related links:
http://company.zynga.com/platform-partners
