The San-Francisco-based company Zynga said in a statement that the agreement represents “the first step towards bringing Zynga’s social games to Microsoft’s platform”.
Zynga’s games will be introduced on Microsoft’s MSN Games and Windows Live Messenger service in the coming months, starting with “Farmville”, undoubtedly the most popular Facebook game, Zynga said in an e-mail statement released by the company.
“FarmVille” will be available to MSN Games users through Facebook Connect, a service that links Web sites.
Zynga was founded by Mark Pincus in 2007 and gain momentum thanks to Facebook’s rapidly expanding social network. The company, which designs games for Facebook platform and capitalizes on users’ ability to buy virtual goods, decided to expand to other websites.
According to research firm Inside Network, Zynga has more than 230 million monthly users on Facebook, with “Farmville”, the most played game on Facebook, attracting 76 million users a month.
The increasing popularity of games on social networks, including Facebook, determined giant game creator Electronic Arts to acquire Playfish, the maker of “Pet Society” and “Restaurant City”, for $400 million.
In December, Zynga reportedly raised $180 million in private capital from Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investor in Facebook.
MSN Games, Microsoft’s gaming unit, has developed thousands of online games such as “Bejeweled” and “Spades”. Following the trend, Yahoo and AOL have also created their own web browser games.
Microsoft has already purchased a $240 million stake in Facebook in 2007, valuing the social network at $15 billion at the moment of acquisition.
