Zynga with Friends gamers’ network to connect users from across different platforms

In a bid to bring its users from across different platforms to a single lobby, Zynga Inc. unveiled a social networking service Zynga with Friends at its Unleashed event that went down in San Francisco on Tuesday, June 26.

Talking to reporters at a press event held at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco, a senior Zynga executive Manuel Bronstein revealed that Zynga with Friends is “one network, one unified experience, and one social lobby that will for the first time connect all of our players, no matter where they’re playing.”

The intended motivation behind bringing the players from its existing website, different mobile devices and social networking website Facebook is to make them play Zynga games for a longer period of time, which could potentially lead to an increase in sales of premium items within the game.

The introduction of the new service will also serve to reduce the dependency of the social network game development company on Facebook. Even though the latter company has played a vital role in the popularity of Zynga games by making it accessible to users around the globe, the game developer felt the need to become more self-reliant. It has already launched its website in March, giving people who are not on Facebook an opportunity to enjoy the game.

Zynga Inc. had also spread its games to various platforms such as Apple Inc. and Google Inc., effectively reaching millions of new users. The company conceded that they are attempting to expand their network even further by targeting a market that comprises of casual gamers who carry out most of their activities on wireless devices.

“The real goal is just to get more players and the fact is that there are people who will play games who aren’t on Facebook,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc.

Some of the recent developments pertaining to the expansion of Zynga’s social network have led a number of analysts to believe that the company is gradually separating itself from Facebook. When asked whether there was any truth to the speculations, the Zynga executives clearly labelled them as baseless, asserting that Zynga’s recent strategic decisions posed no threat to their on-going relationship with the popular social networking website.

“We’ve had a longstanding agreement with Facebook that we would do these kinds of things,” said Reed Shaffner, Zynga’s director of product. “In no way are we trying to use that to say you have to play on this platform.”

If Facebook is even remotely concerned about Zynga putting up its own website and expanding to wireless devices, it is doing an excellent job of hiding it.

Zynga Inc. has emerged as one of the key players in gaming market since the beginning of the gradual transition of game industry’s focus from hard-core and semi-core gamers to casual gamers.