Those annoyingly addictive games from Zynga may soon be coming to pay TV subscribers, with operators being offered the chance to funnel users extra “in-game currency” as a bonus, under a pact between the social games developer and Synacor.
Zynga is turning to MVPDs as its flagship FarmVille and CityVille games have been declining in popularity. In addition, the games developer's deal with Facebook has changed -- allowing the Facebookers to create their own social games. That disclosure last week sent Zynga’s stock price down as much as 8% on Friday.
Anyway, Zynga and Synacor are positioning the offering as a kind of TV Everywhere for games. Zynga’s games including FarmVille2, Words With Friends(Baldwin alert!), Zynga Poker, ChefVille, CityVille, Bubble Safari and Ruby Blast.
Synacor CEO Ron Frankel touted the deal as an example of how pay-TV subscribers are getting even greater value out of their subscriptions -- such partnerships are “redefining the bundle,” he said.
The amount of Zynga in-game credits MVPDs offer subs "will likely be based on what kind of bundle/tier the subscriber is part of," according to a Synacor rep. Those credits can be used to unlock options, depending on the game, such as power-ups and “decorative items.” Redefining the bundle!
San Francisco-based Zynga claims to have 311 million monthly active users playing its games, which are available on services including Facebook, Zynga.com, Google+, Apple iOS and Google Play.
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