Web giant Google has reportedly invested as much as $200 million in FarmVille maker Zynga, which is expected to be the cornerstone of a new Google Games venture.
The investment deal closed about a month ago, according to TechCrunch, while a larger strategic partnership is still being ironed out.
Google Games is set to launch later this year, according to the site’s 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,’ it reports.
TechCrunch also says Zynga’s revenues for the first half of 2010 will hit $350 million, half of which will be operating profit, and that the social game maker is projecting at least $1 billion in revenue in 2011.
In May, Google began searching for a product management leader for games who’ll “be responsible for developing Google's games commerce product strategy and partnering to build and manage the business with a cross-functional team”.
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/google-...g-google-games
