Zynga has joined a partnership with the Chinese company Tencent, who operate some of the largest online networks in China, including an instant messaging client called Tencent QQ. As The Telegraph outlines, the partnership allows for Zynga to attempt to infiltrate the Chinese games market and explore the vast potential. Their first game created specifically for the Chinese market is titled "Zynga City", and is a modified version of the already existing CityVille. The Chinese version of the game includes Chinese architecture, pop culture references, holidays, and news, as opposed to the decidedly more western architecture demonstrated in their original version of the game. The general manager of Zynga China, Andy Tian, had the following to say:
“As a social game developer, Zynga fully recognizes the value of Tencent’s Open Platform and their professional service capability. CityVille is Zynga’s largest and most popular game and Zynga is proud to partner with the leading open platform in China to bring the innovation and delight of the game to Chinese players. We are excited that a fully localized Zynga City will be introduced to the Chinese audience and look forward to enabling them to connect in a fun, harmonious way.”
China's games market has an estimated value of $5.8 billion, which would further aid the San Francisco-based company. Zynga City will be operated by Tencent during a beta version of the game, which will be on its 'Pengyou' platform. Once the beta is over it will be released on other, larger, services operated by Tencent. QCent will be one of the networks Tencent intends to release the game on early in its lifespan, no doubt to capitalize on its popularity.
Zynga had no comment on revenue, or how that revenue would be divided between Tencent and Zynga themselves. At present, Zynga concentrates most of its efforts on its Facebook community - FarmVille, possibly their most well known game, has around 60,000,000 players on Facebook alone. Some of their games do exist on MySpace as well, though it is probable that some of their games will not reach China even if the partnership proves successful, due to Chinese culture or laws that may cause issues.
