Farmville creator will release NFT games in the future, says executive

Wolf is the blockchain research lead at Zynga, an industry that already has 15 employees. With the new hires, he expects the industry to reach between 70 and 100 members by the end of 2022.

The positions sought will be high-ranking, including a “tokenomics designer”. Wolf didn’t say exactly when the Zynga-created NFT game will be released, but said the company is studying a date for that to happen.

Farmville Success on Blockchain?

Zynga games are developed for social media platforms, especially Facebook. In this sense, the company’s biggest success is Farmville, launched in 2009. The game simulates an agricultural simulation environment where players have to manage land, plow, plant, cultivate and raise livestock.

In other words, the game already emulates part of the components built into Metaverse platforms, such as the terrain issue. In this way, Zynga believes that it will have a privileged position to take advantage of the growth of this market.

“Things are really boiling right now. So we’re looking at the cycle and figuring out where we want to get in, but we’re definitely keeping an eye out,” Wolf said.

Initially, Zynga targets blockchain players who are already familiar with the NFT ecosystem. This indicates that the games should be a little more complex and offer incentives such as financial gains.

At the same time, a common complaint, especially among newbies, is the poor user experience in NFT games. But that doesn’t seem to be Zynga’s biggest concern, as Wolf made clear.

“When they (players) get into one of these products, they come from an investor’s or a whale’s point of view. Are interested in specific elements, including yield. We don’t want to bring them something they haven’t asked for and we don’t want to assume they want a super, super deep gaming experience.”

Competition and acquisitions

Wolf’s statement coincides with Zynga’s desire to regain lost ground. When it comes to NFT games, studios like Electronic Arts (EA) and Ubisoft are already way ahead. There’s also competition from companies like Microsoft, which recently acquired Activision Blizzard.

Simultaneously, the industry faces competition from native blockchain and NFT games. The most among them is Axie Infinity, whose NFTs have already grossed $4.1 billion in sales since 2017.

However, Zynga must wait longer to make its decision to create a game in this market. That’s because Take-Two Interactive, an American video game holding company based in New York, has revealed intentions to buy Zynga for $12.7 billion. The company awaits the conclusion of negotiations before diving into new projects.