We’re here at the Zynga Unleashed event in San Francisco this morning and one product we hear they’re launching, among others – is “Zynga Live” their long-awaited platform where people can play games without going through Facebook or another social network partner. The name may have been changed since then, but the concept, an independent gaming network, is still the same.
Details are still sparse, but I’m assuming that the difference between this and something like Farmville.com is that this would be access to multiple gaming titles, though it’s still unclear what the exclusivity arrangements are around Zynga’s various titles.
We wrote about Zynga Live in 2010 when Zynga’s relationship with Facebook over Facebook’s demands for a 30% cut of all Zynga game revenue from games on Facebook, nearly reached a boiling point.
The question remains as to just how much Zynga’s gaming network will rely on Facebook social graph. I’m sure we’ll hear more at the event, stay tuned.
Update: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus confirms. It’s called Project Z and its a part of Zynga “Direct to consumer” strategy — it’s the first to direct to consumer product. From what I’m hearing it will be its own website separate from Facebook, but you will still need Facebook to play the games and it’s interoperable so that you can start a game a Facebook and resume play in the same place somewhere else.
While the service is not yet available on a browser, Zynga did let players reserve their Project Z “ZTags,” or their universal avatars across all Zynga games at Zynga.com.
Zynga
Image via: Rafe