Zynga to launch social network: “Zynga with Friends”

Purveyors of things with the suffix -ville, Zynga has announced plans to launch a social network for gamers called “Zynga with Friends”.

“We’re opening our doors today and opening Zynga Partners for Mobile. We are inviting developers from all over the world to come and join our network,” said David Ko, chief mobile officer.

Riding a massive wave of success from its various social-platform games (Such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars on Facebook), Zynga is clearly looking to break away from dependency on what is now to them, ironically, a third party social network platform on which to distribute games.

In October 2011, Zynga unveiled its own distribution ssytem caleld Zynga Direct, and in March 2012, it launch its own gaming portal, Zynga.com. Things appear to be coming full-circle with the unveiling of Zynga with Friends.

According to Reuters, Zynga shares closed 5 percent lower on Tuesday as investors saw little in the announcement – which included the planned social network, as well as some new, casual games – to drive strong long-term growth.

Accorsing to Reuters, there are concerns about Zynga’s dependence on Facebook for the bulk of its revenue, especially with Facebook experiencing slower growth.

The new social network “is a natural step in the right direction,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Robert W Baird. “It might help them become less dependent on Facebook but … they will continue to remain dependent on Facebook for quite some time.”

“One area where they may have disappointed people is, they are not showing any games in development that target a more core gamer, or so-called mid-core gamer. That’s something where we’ve seen a lot of growth for Facebook, and that’s potentially a missed opportunity for Zynga.”