Zynga

Zynga is launching first game in mainland China in association with Tencent Holdings Ltd in a move to grab a share in the $5.8 billion Chinese games market.

An early version of a game called Zynga City will be released by Zynga on Tencents' open platform, Zynga said in a statement on Monday.

It will be a Chinese version of CityVille, Zynga’s most popular game, featuring Chinese architecture, references to Chinese pop culture, as well as events and contests in the game that will be linked to Chinese holidays and news.

A video game publishing leader Electronic Arts Inc announced its plans to acquire PopCap Games for $1.3 billion a move to compete with the social and casual game makers.

EA said it would pay about $650 million in cash and $100 million in common stock upfront for the maker of the popular video games "Bejeweled" and "Plants vs. Zombies." EA could pay up to an additional $550 million if PopCap reaches certain performance targets in about two years.

EA's Chief Financial Officer Eric Brown said the deal would help EA better compete with Zynga.

One of the largest loyalty programs Citi® ThankYou® Rewards is expanding its rewards collection with the introduction of gift cards and exclusive virtual products from Zynga, the world’s largest social game developer.

Zynga is producing a line of exclusive items available only to Citi ThankYou Rewards members, starting at just 600 ThankYou Points. Members can redeem for both physical and virtual gift cards to enhance their gaming experience across popular games like FarmVille, FrontierVille and Café World.

According to the Wall Street Journal reports Google Inc is in talks with gaming companies as it is preparing to launch a Facebook rival social network.

Citing the sources familiar with the matter, the Journal reports that the search giant has had talks with makers of online games for the service including Playdom Inc, Electronic Arts Inc's Playfish and Zynga Game Network Inc.

The report said is unclear when the new offering will be launched.

It became known that last month Google has secretly invested an undisclosed amount of money   in Zynga, a developer of games for Facebook (Mafia Wars and Farmville). According to Techcrunch the price is something between $100 million and $200 million.