But with Echtra’s talent in hand, the mobile giant can more confidently dive into making games beyond even the thriving mobile space.
Zynga had already announced its first non-mobile title, a Switch version of Star Wars: Hunters, an action title scheduled to launch this year. Zynga was one of the first big mobile publishers, profiting in the early days of Facebook’s run as a public company with addictive titles such as Farmville, and more recently with titles such as Words with Friends, Game of Thrones Casino Slots, and Harry Potter Puzzles & Spells.Įchtra has made cross-over games based on powerhouse franchises such as The Sims, Diablo and Torchlight, on platforms such as Nintendo’s Switch and next-gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft. Regardless, it’s no less telling about the mobile giant’s future direction. The acquiring sensibility behind Zynga’s deal for Echtra Games is considerably less grand, though it can be seen as an interim step toward that Metaverse vision. Now he’s added a few more arrows to his Metaquiver as Epic shoots to create a grand digital future. Sweeney has been a foremost proponent of building the Metaverse, a concept lifted from science fiction classics by Neal Stephenson, William Gibson and Ernest Cline.
