Zynga Inc relaunches its gaming website but loosens ties with Facebook and now users do not have to sign up with the social networking site to play games on Zynga.
The relaunch happened Thursday and is is the site's first move towards becoming an independent website.
According to Tim Catlin, general manager of Zynga.com, the gaming site received feedback that players wanted to create unique names that were not tied to their Facebook accounts, which displays their real names.
"You had to use your Facebook account to play previously, but this is going to change going forward," said Catlin, who added that existing players will still be able to log in with their Facebook accounts.
New players, however, will be able to easily sign up without using Facebook credentials - long a hallmark of many Zynga games.
"We've been able to greatly streamline that process," Catlin said of the new Zynga.com website, which has been in the works for the past year.
Zynga was founded in 2007 and achieved a searing growth rate in its early years by exclusively tapping Facebook's network to gain new users while offering games directly within Facebook.com web pages.
For several years, the company derived close to 90 percent of its revenue from Facebook games, while Facebook received roughly 15 percent of its income in the form of fees from Zynga. However, as more gaming sites entered the market, this advantage depleted as Zynga was criticized for not diversifying away from Facebook's platform.
However, last year the two companies entered into an agreement where Zynga was given special privileges on the Facebook platform.
The company will also focus specifically on mobile and tablet computers as more people have started using these more than the traditional desktops. "Mobile right now for Zynga is one of our most important issues as a company," said Zynga chief operations officer, David Ko.
Currently, 72 million of the company's 300 million monthly active users access games on mobile, but Zynga is looking to increase this number of mobile users.
