Today SGN, the esteemed cross-platform developer of casual games like Jewels of the Amazon and Bubble Atlantis, has announced their acquisition of Mob Science as part of the company's ongoing strategy to expand their development team and add to their impressive roster of games. This news comes hot on the heels of SGN's latest acquisitions of Hallpass Media and Mindjolt, and now with Mob Science entering the fold, SGN will secure the small developer's entire portfolio of games, including the hugely popular Legends: Rise of a Hero.
At the GamesBeat event a few weeks back, Benchmark Capital's Mitch Lasky stated that publishers were originally "a response to scarcity of shelf space," a dilemma that doesn't exist in the mobile/social space. Gaming Insiders founder David Kaye echoed that sentiment during a panel at Casual Connect yesterday on modern publishing, citing "attention" as the new resource developers are fighting for.
It's easy to picture Zynga as riding on some sort of money train, and recently, they started letting third-party developers board that train as well, courtesy of their Zynga Platform partner program. Allowing partners to put their games on Zynga.com, the program seems like a good way for devs to get increased visibility and taste a little more cash themselves.
Zynga revealed three new game partners to their recently announced game platform today at GDC, including Rebellion and Playdemic (creator of Gourmet Ranch). The big news is that the third game partner is Konami.What is Konami releasing as a social game on Zynga? We don't know. When? Ditto.
Back in October, Zynga announced an upcoming social platform for games codenamed Project Z. Today Zynga has let us know what players can expect from Project Z - now officially known as Zynga Platform - and it's a pretty substantial offering. After seeing the service first hand, there seems to be little doubt that Zynga Platform should become an instant hit with both gamers and developers alike.