As Far Eastern companies attempt to enter U.S. social gamers’ devices, American companies like Zynga are already abroad. Zynga announced a partnership with Tencent, a leading Internet service provider in China, to launch Zynga City in open beta on Pengyou in the country.
The game, essentially a Chinese version of its mega hit CityVille, is set to launch on the Pengyou network within a few days. From there, Tencent plans to make the game accessible on QZone, its main social games platform.
If you remember correctly, CityVille was the first Zynga game to release in multiple languages at launch. But localizations for regions like China and Japan take far longer, as the divide between our two countries is arguably more cultural than with other nations like in Western Europe.
Chinese Zynga City players will enjoy items, quests and other content that is heavily influenced by Chinese culture, according to a statement. But the game will also have game mechanics that stem from Chinese cultural nuances, like the ability to send street peddlers to your friends’ cities.
The development and continued support for Zynga City will be handled by Zynga China, acquired by the company when it was still XPD Media over a year ago. While the game will first release on a few Tencent platforms, eventually the company plans for Zynga City to be played over several platforms–including Pengyou, Weibo, QQ games, QZone and Q+–within Tencent’s Open Platform. Now, will this count toward CityVille’s already 80 million players? If that’s the case, then the competition has a city’s worth of work on its plate.
Post a Comment