FarmVille creator Zynga buys mobile developer, forms Zynga with Friends

Zynga returns to round two of the ongoing mobile title bout swinging. Zynga With Friends, the company's brand new, mobile-focused studio, is thanks to Zynga's most recent acquisition of Texas-based NewToy. Developer of iOS hits such as Words With Friends and We Rule, NewToy will now be Zynga's premiere mobile developer, unifying the company's mobile efforts into one single platform. NewToy's studio will become the location of Zynga With Friends Studio, which is convenient considering the company just opened Zynga Dallas recently.

words with friends is now part of zynga with friends"Our goal is to have is to have Zynga games available to anyone, anywhere on any device," says Zynga SVP of Mobile David Ko. "At Zynga, we're committed to provide the best-of-breed mobile game experiences."

Founded in 2008 by brothers Paul and David Bettner, NewToy has reached over 12 million mobile gamers through games like Words With Friends and Zynga hopes to bring that success to its presence in your phones. Paul, the company's CEO and co-founder will take the helm of Zynga With Friends as vice president and general manager and his brother David will become the studio's director.

"Throughout our acquisition talks we utilized a secret code name for the operation--that codename was 'jet pack,'" Zynga With Friends VP and general manager Paul Bettner says. "We chose jetpack because, to us, that's what this acquisition represented--the potential to strap jet packs to our backs and move even faster toward our shared goals."

However, it's unsure at this point what this means for the company's games that have already landed on mobile such as FarmVille's iPhone game and Mafia Wars: Atlantic City on mobile web browsers. Zynga declined to comment on how NewToy will handle making its new bosses' games--both old and new--available for all mobile devices at once.

Android gets with the times, new Facebook brings FarmVille Express

Android just got caught up with the Joneses. Facebook announced recently that the new Facebook Mobile platform has hit Android devices everywhere, meaning fans of Google's smartphone operating system can access all the mobile web apps Facebook Mobile has to offer. Most importantly (of course), that includes HTML5 games like Zynga's FarmVille Express.

In fact, that means a number of HTML5-based social games are now available through Facebook Mobile for Android, including wooga's Magic Land, Moblyng's Word Racer Live, Storm8's World War and more. That's according to Facebook's announcement, which doesn't include games like the HTML5-based Words With Friends and Zynga Poker.

However, HTML5--a web application development method used commonly for games played in mobile web browsers--is largely available on both iPhone, iPad and Android devices, it's a safe bet that these games are accessible through Facebook on Android. (Before the Facebook update, Android users could simply visit "m.farmville.com" to access FarmVille Express.) HTML5 is making big strides in becoming a viable method for making and playing social games.

In fact, Happy Aquarium maker CrowdStar's CEO Peter Relan thinks that HTML5 is the path to 1 billion players of a single game. However, if you ask folks like Zynga Germany's Paul Bakaus, we're a long way from that kind of reach through HTML5. If game makers want to beat Rovio's Angry Birds to the coveted 1 billion fans, they might have to do it the old-fashioned (?) way: get on every game platform you can possibly imagine.

How do you prefer to play games like FarmVille while on the go: mobile web or mobile app? How long will it be before HTML5 games look like their standard app counterparts?