It appears that Facebook is about to lose one of its biggest partners of a recent change in policies. Farmville is a major online game. While the Flash based title has only been around for a short time, it has an expanded user base –up to 83 million users. Each of whom have used their Facebook account to sign up for the app that would allow them to create and maintain a virtual farm on the social networking website.
While the premise of the game is quite simple (sow seeds, water, reap, tend the animals, etc), the game has grown to great popularity because of its simplicity and the fact that users will be able to invite other people to see their farms and of course, trade goods with others. The game is free to play, but Zynga offers premium items and services for players who are willing to purchase extra content.
The combination was perfect, Facebook provided that underlying network that Zynga needed to make its games successful while Zynga’s games kept people accessing Facebook more than ever –thereby helping boost the number of Facebook’s unique users to surpass that of Google. With over 80 million users for Farmville alone, it is hard to deny that Zynga is one of the reasons why Facebook has become what it is today. Aside from Farmville, Zynga has also made a whole host of very successful games on the social networking site such as Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars and more.
According to reports, Facebook has created a new agreement with app developers that would give the social network a 30% take on all transactions on the site. Should this push through, Zynga has hinted that they might possibly migrate to their own independent gaming site. Many question the wisdom in Zynga’s move. While Farmville users will certainly be disappointed, it will not take long for another company to fill in Zynga’s place in Facebook.
Tags: Facebook, Farmville, online-apps