Zynga, the producer of countless social media game platforms most recognized for their Facebook games, announced last week that they are launching a new platform that is separate from the social media giant.
This new, independant platform would free the company to pursue real-money online gaming without going through Facebook. They will continue to maintain their presence on Facebook with their inreasingly popular games.
Mark Pincus, co-founder of Zynga said “In 2007 Facebook changed the game with their courageous move to open their platform to us all. We’re proud to be a part of Facebook’s ecosystem and we built Zynga.com to complement their pervasive social graph. Zynga.com will be one of the first sites completely integrated with Facebook which has become the world’s social dialtone.”
Back in January, Zynga announced its intention to venture into the lucrative online real-money gaming world. Zynga Poker currently has more than 30 million players each month and the venture would surely create a sizeable force in the online gaming industry.
The move may attract endorsements from some of the poker industry heavyweights, like Phil Hellmuth. “If the law changes, a company like Zynga is suddingly sitting on a $5 billion poker site. That would obviously put me in a great situation to represent something like that.”, he said.