Zynga expands with new titles, network

Zynga is unveiling the fifth title in its popular 'Ville” game franchise - this time, it's simply calling it “The Ville”, All Things Digital reports.

The announcement was made at the company's Unleashed event, at its San Francisco headquarters, by Mark Skaggs, Zynga's SVP of product development.

The game publisher, which has been under pressure to reverse a steep slide in stock price in recent months, said its new network will pair gamers with opponents and make features like player profiles, an activity stream and chat available for all users, regardless of whether they play Zynga games on mobile devices or on desktop computers, NDTV writes.

Zynga With Friends is a "one network, one unified experience, and one social lobby that will, for the first time, connect all of our players, no matter where they're playing", Manuel Bronstein, a senior Zynga executive, told reporters.

Zynga is also opening up its application programming interface so that third-party game developers can tap into the Zynga platform, Chron.com notes.

One new partner is videogame pioneer Atari, although no details were released.

The Zynga With Friends network could help reduce some of Zynga's dependence on Facebook by reaching millions of new players who aren't members of that social network, said analyst Michael Pachter, MD of equity research for Wedbush Securities.