![]() Words With Friends on Messenger in a chat window “We made it a really important focus for our team.”Īlready a global success with millions of players, the title is now available in a similar though condensed experience on Messenger, offering access to a userbase of 1.2 billion monthly active users. “When he brought that in front of us we were like, ‘oh my god, this could be really huge for us’,” says Sahgal. One of its engineers managed to hack together an early version of the game complete with turn-based gameplay, a feature that wasn’t available on Messenger at the time. Last year, the publisher focused one of these hackathons on messaging platforms, and it was here that the groundwork was laid for one of its latest Instant Games titles: Words With Friends on Messenger. Zynga hosts a hackathon at its offices every quarter where developeres can take time experimenting on new ideas, typically focusing on emerging platforms and industry trends. I think it's a very natural, powerful platform and it’s obviously inherently social, which is in our DNA.” ![]() ![]() “I think we're starting to see the very early stages of that. Chat apps are becoming more than just a way for you to find out when your friends are coming over for dinner, they're really immersed in our lives, and they're going to naturally evolve from just being a utility to being entertainment and offering more unique, clever ways to connect with your friends and family. “If you look at what's happening in Asia with WeChat, it's obviously a huge business and rivals app stores on iOS and Android,” he tells. ![]() If you look at what's happening in Asia with WeChat, it's obviously a huge business. Zynga’s VP of Games and Words With Friends GM Vaibhav Sahgal is similarly optimistic about the potential of chat apps and the kind of experiences the development teams can deliver. It's early days, but we’re excited about the opportunity to innovate on a new platform." Words With Friends is a mass market, player-vs-player experience that lends itself well to the chat environment. As a social game company we’re always looking for new ways to reach bigger audiences. Zynga clearly sees an opportunity emerging on these platforms, though stresses that it's still in the early stages and as a company it's still primarily focused on mobile with its Words with Friends and Poker franchises.ĬEO Frank Gibeau recently said: "We’re also experimenting with new platforms to broaden the reach of Words With Friends. In the last month, it has released GIFs Against Friends on iMessage and Words With Friends on Messenger for Instant Games.īut they aren’t the only games from the developer, which has now launched roughly 20 different titles on the chat apps – including the Instant Games launch title Words With Friends Frenzy. Other companies like Gamee and MojiWorks have also expressed their excitement for these nascent platforms.īut one of the biggest and most prolific backers of messenger-based gaming right now is US mobile publisher Zynga. King, Spil Games and Blackstorm are just a few of the companies that have got in early on the opportunity with apps for iMessage and/or Instant Games for Facebook Messenger. Developer interest in chat apps as games platforms continues to grow in the West.
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