CityVille Comes To Google+

One of Facebook’s most popular social games, CityVille, is now available to play on Google+. Now you can build you own city and share it with your circles with CityVille+.

CityVille joins a couple of other high-profile games to become available on the new social network. Users have been able to play Angry Birds and Zynga Poker for a little over a month. As of right now, Google+ offers 18 games in all, including titles like “Zombie Lane” and “Bejeweled Blitz,” on top of the big three mentioned above.

Google games went live back in August. At the launch, Google emphasized that fact that games on Google+ would be all about sharing, but about selective sharing. With Google+ games, privacy and control are paramount – according to Google.

Google’s G+ games product manager Punit Soni echoed the importance of privacy and control with an announcement posted to Google+ this morning -

Welcome Zynga’s CityVille to Google+ games! If you’ve played CityVille before, you know how much fun it is to build your own virtual city, and then work with friends to help it grow. On Google+ you can use your circles to share updates with the people you want to and keep news of your civic accomplishments limited to just the right audience.

Zynga also talked about the CityVille+ launch on their blog -

It’s no secret we’re big fans of Google+ here at Zynga. Last month we announced that we partnered with Google to bring Zynga Poker to Google+, and today we’re excited to add CityVille+ to the new game platform.

CityVille grew to become our largest game on Facebook, so naturally we wanted to “build” a presence for it on Google+. Ultimately, we want to make our games accessible to everyone, everywhere – no matter where they play or what platform they play on.

CityVille coming to Google+ is a pretty big deal for Google. As much as some people like to bash social gaming on platforms like Facebook and Google+, there is a giant user base that truly loves these games.

Can big name social games like CityVille bring people over to Google+? Some have been less than optimistic about the future of the new social network. Maybe social gaming is a way to get more people interested in Google+. And maybe Google can differentiate its gaming experience from Facebook’s with the circles concept. I’m sure Farmville+ is just around the corner.

What do you think? Is this big news for Google+? How do you feel about social gaming in general? Let us know in the comments.

There are 2 Comments. Add Yours.

Steven
September 26, 2011 at 7:21 pm

There are plans for Cityville to also create a version for Android, however the problem is the Android version is rumored to be a separate entity, so it’s not like you can work on your Cityville city at home and while you’re out and about, waiting at the DMV for example. So would this also mean that the Google Plus version is also another entity? I would assume so. Can’t we all just get along and work together? Personally, I like the yahoo approach to being able to link with Facebook so you can chat with your FB friends through Yahoo Messenger. So I wouldn’t mind if these games actually worked together no matter if you were on Facebook, Google plus, or even on your smartphone. One thing is certain, until they do, I’m never going to use the Google Plus version of Cityville, even if it has an exclusive Google HQ you can build. They need to make the game run both as the same, because I’m a level 50 already and I’m not going through all that again just to be able to play Cityville on Google Plus.
Pilly
September 30, 2011 at 4:49 pm

Well, no surprise. Everyone’s playing Cityville and many people spend lots of real money on this game. To be honest, I’ve also bought some resources with a Paysafecard voucher I got from my boss (they know I’m a Zynga junkie and this was a perfect present) and I don’t regret it because it’s a very nice game.
The only thing that bothers me is the feeling that Google+ is getting as bad as Facebook. I don’t see any difference by now any more.