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Google forays into social gaming, signs deal with Zynga
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 13 July 2010, 18:53 IST
Bangalore: Google has entered the world of social gaming by secretly investing an amount of more than $100 million in Zynga, the social gaming giant. The investment points to a highly strategic deal and Zynga will be a key player in launching Google Games at the end of the year.
Zynga is renowned for the creation of popular games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars. Its casual games are a huge hit on social network, Facebook. The easy-to-play games are hugely popular among the online populace as they don't require any installations. In fact, rumors doing the rounds say that Google is planning to launch its own social network called 'Google Me'.
Zynga's expertise in social games will give Google Games a solid base to build upon. Plus Google will also see the start of a true social graph as users will log into Google to play games.
Speculations are rife that Google might bring some gaming spice in its Android App store. Zynga is working on FarmVille for Android. However, Google might want Zynga to come up with exclusive social games for Android. This may lead to growth in apps sales and also sale of Android based handsets. However these are just assumptions at the moment which may or may not materialize themselves.