News

Zynga launching first iPhone game

Social gaming firm follows rival SGN onto App Store

Zynga launching first iPhone game

Social games network Zynga has announced its first iPhone game, Live Poker.

It claims to be the first "truly live game on the iPhone", because it lets people play against players of the Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Hi5 web versions of the game.

In truth, it was beaten to that punch by Real Dice's Multiplayer Championship Poker, whose iPhone version works with the Facebook and desktop editions.

But Live Poker does have more social networks on board, and an existing base of 1.4 million daily players to compete against.

More importantly, it's the first iPhone game to use the Facebook Connect technology, allowing it to pull in players' Facebook friend lists. We think Facebook Connect could be a big deal for iPhone games in the coming year, so Zynga has done well to get in first.

Live Poker is available in two versions for iPhone and iPod touch - a freebie game, and a premium ($9.99) version offering more chips and access to tournaments. The multiplayer aspects work over 3G or wi-fi.

Zynga follows rival social gaming firm SGN onto iPhone. The latter saw great success from its initial range of iPhone games.

All eyes are now on UK social games outfit Playfish, whose boss Kristian Segerstrale recently told PocketGamer.biz that iPhone is on its list of platforms to expand to.


Contributing Editor

Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)