Zynga Flips The Bird At Facebook, Launching Own Games "Platform"

Farmville andCityville developers Zynga made their name on Facebook. But Facebook makes the rules on Facebook, and Facebook takes a cut of a company’s profits on Facebook, so Zynga is now looking to sell more of its stuff to you directly.

The social gaming giant yesterday unveiled Zynga Direct, an online distribution service that sounds like it will act as a more social version of Valve’s Steam. Players will be able to play their games and connect with each other through Zynga’s own platform, which will be used on both computers and mobile phones.

Zynga of course doesn’t just have its games on Facebook, but the social platform is still by far the company’s biggest source of players.

With Zynga wanting to “create socialness about the games and not just within the games”, it even sounds like the social aspect to the platform will be a cheeky competitor to Facebook itself for hardcore ‘Ville players.

Note this doesn’t mean Zynga is suddenly up-and-leaving Facebook. You’ll still be able to play the company’s games there. But it definitely seems a signal of intent that it doesn’t want to stay there forever (or might even lure players away with enticements).

Zynga unveils Zynga Direct, its new way of distributing games [GamesBeat]