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Google + Zynga + $200m = Google Games?


TechCrunch has some news about Google investing in Farmville developers Zynga. If TC's "multiple sources" are correct, then the secret deal is intended to furnish a new Google Games project:

Google has quietly (secretly, one might say) invested somewhere between $100 million and $200 million in social gaming behemoth Zynga, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources... Not only will Zynga’s games give Google Games a solid base of social games to build on, but it will also give Google the beginning of a true social graph as users log into Google to play the games. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see PayPal being replaced with Google Checkout as the primary payment option. Zynga is supposedly PayPal’s biggest single customer, and Google is always looking for ways to make Google Checkout relevant.

This is backed up with some project lead job ads for games from Google itself. Which is interesting.

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Jim Rossignol avatar
Jim Rossignol: Jim was one of the four co-founders of Rock Paper Shotgun, before he left us to go make video games.
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