Zynga Direct Platform, New Social Games Debut At 'Unleashed' Event (UPDATE)

This post has been updated.

At Zynga's "Unleashed" event in San Francisco on Tuesday, the social gaming company's founder and Mark Pincus announced 10 new products, including the Zynga Direct (aka Project Z) platform and several new games.

TechCrunch notes that Zynga Direct will be "independent" of Facebook.

"It’s called Project Z or Zynga Direct and from what I’m hearing it will be its own website separate from Facebook, but you will still need Facebook to play the games," writes TechCrunch's Alexis Tsotsis.

Live blogging the announcement, AllThingsD wrote that the platform was developed for both mobile and web users.

"[W]e are going to build a whole sandbox around the games and not just in the games," Pincus said, per AllThingsD.

As described by Pincus, the new network will facilitate "a direct relationship with consumers."

"Everything behind the products we're creating is this mission to build a platform for play," said Pincus, according to a post on the company's official Twitter feed (@Zynga)

Zynga also took the wraps off three new games developed for Facebook's new mobile platform, which the social network debuted on Monday. According to a Zynga blog post, Zynga Poker Mobile Web, Words With Friends HTML5 and Farmville Express will soon be available for play on Facebook's mobile apps, including the social network's newly announced iPad app.

The company even rolled out a few more titles, developed specifically for Facebook's Web-based platform.

CastleVille, the company's latest title in its hugely popular Ville series of games, lets players can construct their own fantasy worlds from the ground up. Hidden Chronicles, a social scavenger hunt of sorts, also made its first appearance at the "Unleashed" event, alongside a new casino-style game called Zynga Bingo. All three titles are currently live on Facebook.

Take a look at Zynga's post on its official company blog to see what other titles and platform plans were announced on Tuesday.

Comments

[MVEMJSNUP]

04:22 PM on 10/12/2011

I'm still peeved over Zynga dropping Street Racing....

[SuperBenFranklin]

07:34 PM on 10/11/2011

When the bubble bursts, it's going to be messy.

[jgeurian21]

05:46 PM on 10/11/2011

So if this requires a Facebook log in how is this a "big break" from Facebook? Very misleading title.

[jmoser1973]

05:30 PM on 10/11/2011

"It’s called Project Z or Zynga Direct and from what I’m hearing it will be its own website separate from Facebook, but you will still need Facebook to play the games."

Doesn't sound independent to me.

[ChrisDWard]

05:19 PM on 10/11/2011

I no longer play the games on FB. But a big pet peeve of mine is the sometimes poor spelling and grammar used by Zynga and others, which serves to reinforce this sloppiness among its millions of users.

[Sundialsvc4]

05:09 PM on 10/11/2011

"Activate the Dog?"

Hmm....

I think I'll just let the dog outside and he can go activate himself. When he's finished he can bump on the door like he usually does and I'll let him back in.

Contrary to popular belief, we don't need a digital computer to do _everything_ in our lives. :->

[overkill]

06:24 PM on 10/11/2011

I see what you did there.

[milkat610]

04:19 PM on 10/11/2011

It's not new games we want, Facebook...what we want is an OPTION to maintain SOME privacy and just be connected for connection sake.