Farmville Maker Zynga Teams Up with Yahoo

Yahoo and Zynga, makers of the massively popular Farvmville and Mafia Wars games on Facebook, have struck a new deal. Yahoo now gets these games as well, which is...
Farmville Maker Zynga Teams Up with Yahoo
Written by Chris Crum
  • Yahoo and Zynga, makers of the massively popular Farvmville and Mafia Wars games on Facebook, have struck a new deal. Yahoo now gets these games as well, which is a significant indication that Zynga will not need Facebook alone to thrive.

    A representative for Yahoo tells WebProNews, "The partnership integrates Zynga’s most popular social games across Yahoo!, enabling users to easily play games and access updates across some of its most popular properties including the Homepage, Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger and others.  The integration is part of Yahoo!’s commitment to provide personally relevant experiences to people, from across the Web."

    "Together with the recently announced Facebook and Twitter integrations, this relationship is a key part of advancing Yahoo!’s social experience that lets people share updates across Yahoo! and other social platforms," the rep says. "This will drive deeper user engagement, and create new opportunities for developers as an extension of Zynga’s current platforms."

    Zynga and Facebook hit something of a rocky patch recently, as Facebook moved toward requiring developers to use Facebook credits, but the two companies squashed that feud (which may have been blown out of proportion anyway) when they announced a five-year strategic partnership last week.

    Farmville - Now integrated with Yahoo

    So now Zynga has Facebook and Yahoo going for it, and that could push its popular games into even more massive popularity. Under the Yahoo deal, users will get: 

    – the ability to play Zynga games and access their game updates across Yahoo properties like the homepage, Yahoo Games, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, etc.

    – the ability to share updates across multiple social experiences simultaneously while playing the games on Yahoo

    – product integration of the games with the Yahoo Application Platform, through which third-party developers can develop apps on Yahoo.

    "Yahoo is focused on providing compelling, personally relevant experiences and social games are core to this experience," says Hilary Schneider, executive vice president, Yahoo Americas. "Zynga will bring top notch social game experiences to Yahoo!, including through our open platforms such as Yahoo! Application Platform and Yahoo! Updates.  Yahoo! will also continue to work with other partners, developers and publishers to bring compelling innovations and experiences from across the web to our users."

    Zynga games are expected to roll out across the Yahoo network in the coming months.

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