JamLegend sings swan song, folds into Zynga

The team that developed a 2M user music gaming community is going to bigger, greener pastures

And another one bites the dust.

Barely two weeks since its last snatch, Zynga has acquired the team behind music gaming community JamLegend.

Founded in 2008 by Andrew Lee, Arjun Lall, and Ryan Wilson and headquartered in San Francisco, JamLegend developed games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, letting people play songs by their favorite artists in online games. The draw of JamLegend, versus its more well-known console versions, was that it didn’t require an expensive system and it claimed to offer more songs by artists. In its short life, JamLegend had formed partnerships with all four major music labels in addition to independent artists.

Today, JamLegend boasts two million users and 110 million plays.

Unfortunately for lovers of JamLegend, the service will be shutting down completely on April 29, and all user data will be permanently deleted. Already, the site is no longer accepting new registrants, JamCash deposits or VIP subscriptions/extensions.

Wrote the company founders in their announcement:

After nearly three years of running JamLegend, we are shutting down the service to move on to new ventures. We will look back fondly on our experiences at JamLegend. JamLegend was the most vibrant music gaming community in the world, where the greatest players and trackers/producers helped evolve online music consumption. We’ll always be proud of bringing so much joy to so many.

While there has yet to be any word from Zynga, reports claim official confirmation that JamLegend has joined the social gaming giant.

If it’s true, then JamLegend will be Zynga’s twelfth acquisition in less than a year and its fifth in 2011. Interestingly, many of the purchases from last year actually formed new gaming studios, whereas more recent buys have been primarily Zynga’s way of quickly attaining trustworthy, high-quality talent.

To perhaps state the obvious, the team from JamLegend could help the social gaming company quickly develop music-based games, which has been a category curiously absent from Zynga's roster thus far. It's even more curious considering the wealth of other startups, like Smule and Tapulous, that have reaped the rewards of music games.

Anyway, here’s the running tally on Zynga's acquisitions:

• XPD in Beijing
• Challenge Games in Austin
• Unoh Games in Tokyo
• Conduit Labs in Boston
• Dextrose AG in Frankfurt
• Bonfire Studios in Dallas
• Newtoy Inc. in McKinney, Texas
• Flock team
• Area/Code, New York
• Floodgate Entertainment
• MarketZero
• JamLegend

What do you think? Will Zynga manage to acquire even more companies this year than it did in 2010?