Today’s “Zynga Unleashed” event in San Francisco revealed moves to allow third-party game developers to use Zynga’s technology platform and a new “Zynga with Friends” brand for multiplayer social interactions that could help the game company reduce its dependency on Facebook. Oh, and the company announced some new games, too.
There was no announcement, however, of the rumored real-cash gaming deal that would have brought down the house.
A Gaming Platform, Not Just Games
Uncharacteristically, CEO and Founder Mark Pincus began the conference by discussing the Zynga “platform” and infrastructure, rather than the new games that typically lead off similar events. There were a lot of numbers thrown around: number of logins, number of inbox clicks, even the number of bubbles popped in Bubble Safari. The upshot was that while Zynga’s games may be small and simple, the infrastructure behind them is big, scalable and sophisticated.
Why is that important? While the details are still pending, Zynga Chief Engineer Kostadis Roussos announced that Zynga will be opening its application programming interface (API) to third-party developers, giving them access to that infrastructure.
This could have two big impacts on the game industry and Zynga:
1) Depending on pricing, access to Zynga’s platform could lower the cost of entry for new, startup game developers. Ideally, they’ll be able to focus more on game design and less on building a scalable back-end.
2) It will take some of the creative burden off of Zynga. Pincus’ developers still have an interest in creating the best possible games, but as a technology provider they can still earn a cut of other hit games. This should provide some earnings stability and reduce the need for expensive, risky acquisitions like OMGPOP, maker of the fast-tanking super-hit,
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