Zynga RewardVille rewards the Zynga-obsessed

Ronny Kerr · March 15, 2011 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/182c

Play CityVille, FarmVille, EveryVille! and get rewarded with limited or exclusive virtual goods

Two months after first launching in beta, Zynga RewardVille has gone live for everyone, allowing users to earn points and coins that can be used to unlock exclusive and limited edition virtual goods.
 
It’s a new way of persuading people already playing Zynga games to get even more addicted to playing more Zynga games.
 
Announced at SXSW and available at rewards.zynga.com (or rewardville.com), the new hub encourages Zynga gamers to try other titles by limiting how many Zynga points (or “zPoints”) one can earn per game. Users can earn 80 zPoints per game or 300 zPoints total daily. As the user continues to accumulate more zPoints, he or she will advance in Zynga levels (“zLevel”) and gain Zynga coins (you guessed it, “zCoins”). Those zCoins can then be spent on rewards, like virtual goods.
 
In summary: play Zynga games, earn zPoints, gain zLevels and spend zCoins on rewards. Sound complicated? Then you’ve probably never played a Zynga game.
 
RewardVille supports 10 of Zynga’s 20 games: CityVille, FrontierVille, FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Zynga Poker, Café World, Treasure Isle, YoVille, PetVille and Vampire Wars.
 
As for the actual rewards, it always comes back to virtual goods. With 200 zCoins in CityVille, you can purchase a “Stepped Skyscraper,” which adds 220 population (not to mention penthouse views). In Zynga Poker, 200 zCoins gets you a 30-day VIP membership, which comes with the chance of even more bonus rewards. In Mafia Wars? An “Armored Empire,” one of the game’s most powerful cars.
 
Basically, RewardVille is a cross-game platform which Zynga hopes will engage even more of the company’s 250 million monthly active users.

Of course, because (for the time being) Zynga wants to play nice with Facebook, there can be no real money exchange on RewardVille. Facebook recently told developers that Facebook Credits was the only way users could spend money on their apps, meaning Zynga would be sidestepping the rule if RewardVille accepted payments. (Facebook is very serious about the rule since they receive a 30 percent cut from purchases of Credits.) Still, it makes one wonder whether Zynga has grander ambitions for its new rewards program.

Watch the video below to learn more about RewardVille:

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Zynga is the largest social gaming company with 8.5 million daily users and 45 million monthly users.  Zynga’s games are available on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster, Yahoo! and the iPhone, and include Texas Hold’Em Poker, Mafia Wars, YoVille, Vampires, Street Racing, Scramble and Word Twist.  The company is funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, IVP, Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group, Avalon Ventures, Pilot Group, Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel.  Zynga is headquartered at the Chip Factory in San Francisco.  For more information, please visit www.zynga.com.

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