Zynga Tests Offering Games on Its Own Site

5:58 AM PST 3/2/2012 by Georg Szalai

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The social gaming giant, known for CityVille and other franchises, is looking to reduce its reliance on social network Facebook, which accounts for a vast majority of its revenue.

NEW YORK - Social gaming firm Zynga, which went public in December, is making good on its promise to allow consumers to play some of its popular games on Zynga.com instead of relying on social network giant Facebook for distribution.

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The San Francisco-based company said it is rolling out a "beta" version of what is dubbed the Zynga Platform, which will initially allow people to play five of its popular titles outside of social networks, it said. The games are CityVille, Hidden Chronicles, Zynga Poker, CastleVille and Words With Friends. More of its games will become available on the site over time.

"In addition to serving up popular Zynga games, Zynga.com will let players discover and play social games created by third party game developers," such as Mob Science, Row Sham Bow and Sava Transmedia, the company said in a statement. It described the site as "a playground for social games."

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Analysts have highlighted Zynga's reliance on Facebook, which in turn gets a usage boost from Zynga's games. The network accounts for more than 90 percent of Zynga's revenue, the company has disclosed.

“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 Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus. “Together with our platform partners, we look forward to bringing more play to the world on our platform.”

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com

Twitter: @georgszalai