Farmville Creator Zynga to Launch NFT Games, Says Gaming Firm’s Blockchain Lead

On February 9, 2022 Zynga’s vice president for blockchain, Matt Wolf, informed the publication Axios of its plans to launch non-fungible token games (NFT).

Mark Pincus and Eric Schiermeyer founded Zynga in 2007 with Justin Waldron, Justin Waldron. Michael Luxton, Steve Schoettler, Steve Schoettler and Andrew Trader. Zynga’s games gained popularity after Farmville was released on Facebook in 2009. Words with Friends and Zynga Poker were also successes for the company.

Wolf spoke with Stephen Totilo (Axios contributor), and described the company’s NFT goals. Wolf stated that Zynga currently has around 15 blockchain employees, and that it plans to grow that number by 70-100 by the end of 2019.

Zynga’s vice president for its blockchain sector said that the studio is currently hiring top positions, including a tokenomics designer. Wolf didn’t say when Zynga’s NFT game will be released, but he stated that Zynga was still considering when Zynga would join the NFT ecosystem.

Wolf stated that things are “really frothy right at the moment.” “So, we’re looking at this cycle and trying to figure out where we want it to go in, but we have some feelers.”

Wolf explained to Totilo that NFT-centric concepts within Zynga games would be voluntary following the introduction of NFTs in gaming companies like EA and Ubsoft. Zynga initially aims to appeal to blockchain gamers already familiar with NFTs.

Wolf stated that when they enter into one these products, they do so from an investor’s or whale’s point of view. They are also interested in yield. The Zynga blockchain executive said:

We don’t want them to get something they don’t need, nor do we want to assume they want an extremely deep gaming experience.

Zynga Faces Competition. Take-Two Interactive Set to Buy Firm

Zynga has been a major player in the entry of companies such as EA and Ubisoft into the NFT world. Other video games companies like Square Enix, Konami also are stepping into NFTs. Axie Infinity is a play-to earn (P2E) game that has seen $4.1 billion in NFT sales over the past year.

Zynga might not know when it will enter the blockchain gaming market because the firm could be entering an acquisition agreement. Take-Two Interactive, an American video game holding company, was last month to announce its intentions of purchasing Zynga at $12.7 billion.