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Zynga launches Studio-I in Bangalore
By siliconindia
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Monday, 14 March 2011, 19:19 IST
Bangalore: Zynga, the largest social game developer of the company has announced the launch of Zynga Studio-I (Studio India) in Bangalore. This is the largest Zynga studio outside U.S. and will develop new game mechanics, in-game features, creative elements other technology innovations for users across the globe. As a part of the expansion, the company also plans to double its headcount in the next one year.
Zynga opened its India operations one year ago and the center since then has been spearheading technology support. The India center is also credited with the development of Membase, an open source database management system, optimized for storing data behind interactive Web applications.
"The online social gaming world generates several petabytes of data, which cannot be stored in traditional databases because of the challenges of scale. Membase was developed to solve this problem. Zynga Studio I will continue to be committed to bringing in such technological innovations," says Shan Kadavil, Country Manager, Zynga India.
The company sees over 1.5 million daily users in India and the numbers have been rising phenomenally across all age groups. To increase its interactivity with the users, the company has launched various initiatives such as organizing Zynga Fan events, Zynga community gatherings and the recent roll out of game cards.
For this the company has tied up with MOL AccessPortal to provide game cards at retail outlets - such as cyber cafes - across the country. These game cards, starting at Rs 100, are available in various denominations.
This comes after Zynga's strategic partnership with American Express to provide virtual goods through the credit card provider's Membership Rewards Program, in November last year. Credit card holders in the U.S. can use their Membership Reward Points to buy goods in Zynga's Facebook games as well as toward physical and virtual Zynga Game Cards. When asked if they would be getting into similar partnerships with Indian banks, Shan said that while they were exploring such opportunities, credit cards were not a popular option for users in India.
Currently, Zynga has 20.9 million users in India and 250 million worldwide.
