Zynga brings Mafia Wars to iPhone

Social games firm Zynga has released Mafia Wars for iPhone – its third title for Apple's platform.

It's one of the biggest Facebook games to cross over to the App Store so far – it has more than 9.2 million monthly active users on the social network.

However, it's far from the first mafia title to be released for iPhone, with rivals from SGN, Playmesh, Addmired and Aftershock Innovations already on the App Store.

Zynga is clearly hoping its polished production values and big Facebook audience will see its title trump them all. It certainly looks the part.

However, TechCrunch makes a valid point in its report on the game – why no actual link with the Facebook version?

Will many of those 9.2 million people fancy starting from scratch and maintaining two mobs in parallel? And yet the argument that separating the two makes the iPhone version more appealing to new players holds water, too.

It shows that transferring a big Facebook hit to mobile, while balancing the needs of existing and new players, takes plenty of thought.

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