Zynga Moves to Conquer Earth Through Asia

Zynga’s influence has spread into China, and the rest of the world can’t be far behind.

Zynga made its first step into the Asian imaginary farm videogame market this week, announcing the acquisition of XPD Media, a game developer based in Beijing, China. XPD is known for creating games for social networks in Asia, a region where Zynga previously had no presence.

Zynga’s Corporate Development VP Robert Goldberg said: “As the largest Internet market in the world, China is at the vanguard for virtual goods based gaming innovation. We expect our new office in Beijing and the incredible talent in the local market to play a strategic role in our mission to create the best social gaming experiences worldwide.”

This is corporate talk for: “We’re going to get a lot more money now and soon nobody will be able to stop us.” Zynga currently does pretty well through offerings on Facebook such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars, so presumably the company will massively strengthen itself by expanding into the enormity of Asia. Zynga’s new Bejing studio will be run by Andy Tian, co-founder of XPD Media.

Zynga and Facebook are like two peas in a pod, making up recently after a near split. The question is whether Zynga will be able to gain a similar foothold in the already established Asian social networks, or if it’ll run out of dollars and not be able to purchase that limited-time only haunted house without completing some stupid offer. It’s a FarmVille thing. If Zynga does do well, what could possibly stop it from next tunneling out a secret lair beneath a volcano and taking over the entire world?

Via: Gamasutra