Zynga and Facebook are trying to put a few limits on their friendship as the two have decided to revise the five-year agreement inked in late 2010. Although the amendment relaxes the restrictions for both companies, it makes their relationship a tad distant, said CNN.
The new contract gives Facebook some wings to develop its own online games. This part is definitely not a blessing for Zynga, given the online games developer’s weak 2012 outlook due to poor performance from some of its games.
However, Facebook ruled out any plans to develop games, saying they would prefer to focus on being a platform where apps and games are built. This could give Zynga a sigh of relief, especially after its shares dropped 11 per cent during after-hours trading last week, while those of Facebook remained flat.
Meanwhile, most of the amendments in the revised contract were beneficial to Zynga as certain restrictions were removed. For one, Facebook will no longer be the exclusive platform that gamers need to go through to access Zynga’s online games. They can now log in to the recently introduced portal www.zynga.com, which the FarmVille-maker plans to develop into a standalone gaming portal.
Even better, Zynga games will no longer display Facebook ads and its website is no longer compelled to use the social networking giant’s virtual payment system. Notably, this system provides Facebook a 30 per cent share of all sales that go through it.
Aside from that, Zynga is no longer forced to use Facebook as the main “non-Zynga platform.” However, newly unveiled games by Zynga should be concurrently launched on Facebook.
