Social gaming giant Zynga has bought casual games company Wild Needle. The female-oriented startup was bought for an undisclosed amount following the release of its first title Shoptown Hero in March, which was pulled from the App Store two weeks ago.
Zynga has confirmed that it's buying online gaming creator OMGPOP. The deal will give it access to Draw Something just weeks after the game became popular. Official terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
Zynga, the social gaming service provider, announced on Thursday it will launch its own Zynga Platform, moving away from its dependence on Facebook and mobile apps. A beta version of Zynga.com will launch first, allowing players to initiate in Zynga social games as well as those from third-party developers. Zynga.com will remain tied into Facebook, as many of the games require assistance from other gamers to complete tasks or obtain virtual objects.
Facebook may be willing to share some of its revenues with mobile carriers. Bret Taylor, the company's CTO, said in commentary on Monday that the social networking giant might be interested in giving a portion of the payments it received from selling games and music to the mobile service providers over whose network the purchase was made. Taylor made the revelation to an audience at Mobile World Congress.
Best Buy as part of a promo has started the run of tech-focused Super Bowl ads with a segment pitching its mobile stores. The ad unites both the inventors of phone technology, such as Philippe Kahn (the camera phone) and Ray Kurzweil (text to voice synthesis) with those making newer hardware and software. Key inventors behind Instagram, Shazam, Square, Words With Friends, and others find their way into the 30-second clip.
The SEC filing behind Facebook's long-expected IPO has seen company founder Mark Zuckerberg take an Apple cue in his pay. The CEO earlier this month requested that, as of the start of 2013, his base pay be cut from as much as $500,000 in 2011 to just $1, much like Apple co-creator Steve Jobs. Zuckerberg is known to have taken advice from Jobs and considered his success an aspirational goal.
Amazon on Wednesday confirmed that it will bring a plethora of existing Android apps to the Kindle Fire when it begins shipping next week. They will number in the thousands and include such popular ones like Netflix, Facebook, Pandora, Twitter and more. Games from Rovio, Electronics Arts, Zynga and other established developers will also be instantly available.
Facebook's plan to make an iOS-oriented platform for HTML5 web apps, Project Spartan, may have been given a lift after new word that it has hired to boost its efforts. Teck Chia, the founder of HTML5 mobile app store OpenAppMkt, has reportedly been hired. Purposes of the hire were unknown, although TechCrunch noted that Chia had previously worked on Facebook apps and would be an ideal fit to help manage Facebook apps converted to HTML5.
Google ended a string of leaks Thursday afternoon with official game support on Google+. The primarily Flash-based games come from majors in web games and some from Facebook, including Zynga titles like Zynga Poker as well as Rovio's Angry Birds and PopCap's Bejeweled Blitz. In a direct jab at Facebook's tendency to put all updates on the main news feed, Google added that games, their status updates, and their achievements would only show in a Games tab.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg dropped clues to the company's imminent native iPad app or possibly Project Spartan. The social network is due to "launch something awesome" next week developed entirely by its newer Seattle office. He wouldn't mention the iPad app by name but hinted it was for mobile and tablet plans.
Wireless provider AT&T and social games developer Zynga on Wednesday announced a partnership that will see the latter's latest games available to the former's subscribers. AT&T's shelf in the Android Market will get popular titles such as FarmVille, Words with Friends, and Zynga Poker, among others, as part of the deal. Users will also find customized content and free credits in some games.
Facebook is hoping to bring its app platform to mobile through a massive effort targeting iOS users, details of which escaped Wednesday night. Project Spartan would bring the social network's apps to mobile Safari through an HTML5 wrapper that would replicate some of Facebook itself, such as Credits. About 80 developers were said by TechCrunch to be involved, including FarmVille's Zynga and the Huffington Post.
Facebook tested a direct media service of its own today through a team-up with Warner. US visitors to the fan page for The Dark Knight can rent the movie using 30 Facebook Credits, or about $3, to watch it directly from the social network. Viewers have the same rights as they do through iTunes or other rentals, including unlimited views for the 48 hours afterwards, full-screen playback and the option of resuming from where they left off.
Zynga has announced that it has acquired Newtoy, a Texas-based developer best known for the Games With Friends series of mobile apps. The Newtoy headquarters in McKinney, Texas will now become The Zynga With Friends Studio. The startup's multiplayer platform is said to have attracted a community of over 500,000 players.
Zynga, the game powerhouse behind many successful Facebook and now iOS games, has launched its mega-popular Farmville strategy game as its first app for the iPad. The company has updated its existing free Farmville iPhone/iPod Touch app to be truly universal, creating new layouts, custom graphics and new gesture controls for the iPad "HD" edition. Users can tend to farms on any of Apple's mobile iOS devices, as well as through the web.
Multiple sources late Saturday slipped word that Google has been investing in Zynga to create its own web game platform. Google is believed to have invested at least $100 million and as much as $200 million into the FarmVille creator in June and is now developing a "larger strategic partnership," according to TechCrunch. The move would create Google Games, a hub for web gaming where Zynga would be the cornerstone of a larger network.
With E3 just finished, it's time for the market to start evaluating game companies. But as EA, Ubisoft, Activision, and others continue to get all the headlines, social-gaming companies don't get the kind of respect their bigger competitors do. This may have to change with larger platform supporters, including non-traditional Apple, as they may be ignoring an untapped market.
The largest Internet company in the Eastern European markets, Digital Sky Technologies has purchased instant messaging program ICQ from AOL, the two companies announced on Wednesday. ICQ is the leading IM service in Russia and other international markets, and Digital Sky purchased it for $187.5 million.
