Skip to main content

Zynga unveils CityVille game for Facebook

zynga-cityville-this-aint-no-farm

FarmVille addicts rejoice. Like so many rural folk, the pull of modern society may soon bring you to the city. Zynga has unveiled CityVille, its newest social game. Instead of building a farm, players will become a mayor of a city and build it from the ground up, a la Sim City. In the next couple weeks, beta versions of the game will be rolled out in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish.

“Instead of harvesting crops you’re harvesting your neighborhood; instead of clearing your friend’s frontier you’re working on a friend’s franchise,” Sean Kelly, the game’s general manager, told the AFP.

The gameplay works like this: you’re a city planner and you must build roads, houses, police stations, schools, businesses, and even farms to grow your city and provide for your residents. If you fail to provide for them, your city will suffer in some way. Perhaps the roads will decay and the population will go down? Zynga points toward city hunger as an issue, though that’s a bit odd.

Franchising

The big catch is social interaction. CityVille players can create their own restaurant franchises and expand them to cities their friends have built. However, Zynga’s real moneymaking plan may come from businesses that want to plant a franchise in your town. Maybe Burger King wants to open up shop in your city. It’s good advertising for Burger King and if players like the restaurant, they’d be apt to add it to their city and share it with friends. If the building comes with benefits, all the better. There will likely be buildings players will have to purchase as well. Do you want a Chrysler building in your city? It may cost you a few bucks.

Zynga’s games are immensely popular. According to the publisher, 225 million people play its games each month on sites like Facebook and Yahoo. FarmVille alone has more than 80 million users. The games are so successful that Zynga was recently valued higher than Electronic Arts, one of the world’s largest game publishers.

Are you into FarmVille, Mafia Wars, or FrontierVille? Plan to play CityVille? Seeing what could be a new Sim City-like game is quite exciting, even though it will likely disappoint fans of the classic game.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Burger King Will Keep Cranking Out Games

As it turns out, the foray into gaming that Burger King started last year with games like Pocketbike Racer, Big Bumpin’, and Sneak King won’t be the company’s last.  On Friday, Burger King announced that it had signed a licensing agreement with Mobliss Inc. to create downloadable cell phone games with BK branding. “Anyone can buy advertising space in gaming; our vision is to be successful in generating original content that is relevant to our consumer,” said Russ Klein, Burger King’s president of global marketing, in a statement. “Content-generated share of voice wins hearts and commands attention in an over-crowded medium.” The first game will make players potential heirs to the King’s throne, forcing them to compete in different challenges and games to seal the deal. It will be set in a Burger-King-themed city, and progressing in the game will allow gamers to rack up points, advance levels, and move on to more difficult challenges. Burger King’s original line of Xbox 360 caused a stir last year when they hit sales of 2 million, rivaling Gears of War. The games were available through Burger King restaurants for $3.99 with the purchase of a value meal. The newest games will also come with a cost, but Burger King hasn’t yet announced a price. They will be downloadable with a text message starting in spring 2008 when Burger King will being promoting them through signs and packaging.

Read more
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor: release date, trailers, preorders, and more
Jedi Cal Kestis.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is among the most critically acclaimed games set in a galaxy far, far away. Players followed Cal Kestis, played by Cameron Monaghan, in his journey to kick-start the Jedi Order after Emperor Palpatine famously ordered them all slaughtered. His journey of self-discovery was one many gamers could relate to and are excited to continue in the sequel Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

Developers at EA, Respawn, and Lucasfilm Games have only given fans a taste of what Survivor has in store for them with two trailers, but they are promising an epic new Star Wars story.  The dark, mysterious, and menacing tones were what director Stig Asmussen hoped to convey, foreshadowing the Fallen Order sequel. Here's everything we know about Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
See more

Read more
Save $40 when you add 1TB of storage to your Xbox Series X or PS5
western digital wd black d30 game drive 1 tb deal best buy march 2023

 

The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are finally attainable, after years of being sold out and underproduced. Both have great options for downloading new games monthly -- Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Now -- but they just don't come shipped with enough storage to hold all that content. That's where external hard drive deals come in. Right now you can buy a 1TB Western Digital WD_Black D30 hard drive for $110, $40 off its usual price. That should give you enough storage for tons of full games, and you can forget about cleaning up your hard drive for a while.

Read more