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Zynga Launches the First Live Social Game for the iPhone: Live Poker
November 13th, 2008
Zynga, one of the biggest developers of social games today, is announcing today the launch of “Live Poker” for the iPhone, thus making it the first truly live game on the iPhone platform. The game is a mobile version of the highly popular Texas Hold’Em application and has effectively turned the iPhone into an always-on social gaming device.
With Live Poker, players can compete with any of the 1.4 million daily web players at any time from anywhere with an internet connection. Finding and joining buddies or selecting tables is even easier than the Facebook version, and it’s not just limited to Facebook. Users can now connect and play with friends from Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, or Zynga’s own account system.
Table selection has also been simplified, and there are always games going on. You can easily see when your friends are playing, or join in with users of any level.
Live Poker is also the one of the first applications to make use of Facebook Connect, thus deepening the level of social integration for the iPhone platform. With Facebook Connect, Live Poker can allow social information (such as photos) to be displayed in-game.
It’s also worth mentioning that Zynga has created a 2nd app that is advertised in the free version as “buy 40,000 chips,” and costs $9.99. This upgraded version of the free rendition (and other paid versions at different prices) circumvents the lack of any virtual goods infrastructure on the iPhone, and allows users to buy more poker chips whenever they want. It also gives users access to various poker tournaments.
“We have seen the creation of the next important social gaming platform, thanks to ‘Live Poker,’” said Zynga CEO Mark Pincus in a statement. “Delivering the first social game on the iPhone is a logical extension for us. Social gaming continues to grow, and this is another giant step towards taking it to the mass market.”
Like its web predecessor, Live Poker has great design, its fun, plays well, and works impressively fast considering it is a live multiplayer game on a new mobile platforum. The game is available on any iPhone with 3G or Wi-Fi access, as well as the iPod Touch. It can be downloaded at the iTunes store here.
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Italian / Italiano
November 13th, 2008 at 8:32 am
[...] in Uncategorized Everyone in tech journalism seems jazzed about it; and, at least the poker actually is reasonably good, especially compared [...]
November 13th, 2008 at 10:56 am
[...] morning, Zynga launched the first Facebook Connect enabled social game for the iPhone, Live Poker. From the Facebook perspective, Live Poker is interesting for a couple of [...]
November 13th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
It’s nice to see that Zynga is staying true to their focus while stepping onto a new platform; it’s not just about making an iPhone game, but about bringing the social gaming experience onto the iPhone.
November 16th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
[...] Zynga Launches the First Live Social Game for the iPhone: Live Poker - Zynga uses Facebook Connect to bring social gaming to the iPhone. [...]
February 24th, 2009 at 4:01 am
[...] a more specific launch date other than 2009). However, early Connect applications have already emerged on the iPhone. Facebook is also working on a native Cocoa development kit for the iPhone so that [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 7:00 am
[...] with people they know,” said Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, in a statement. Zynga has also developed Live Poker for the iPhone, which it released late last [...]
April 5th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
I love Zynga.com but the latest free version 2.2 for the iphone crashed (disconnected me) 17 times yesterday todays date 4/5/09. On the the iphone update it said fewer crashes.
There is no way I wold move to the paid version if this is the example of quality to be expected. PS I have run prior versions for my iphone and they only disconnected occasinally. This is really too bad for a nice app such as this. Any recommendations why this latest version os so bad??
April 7th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
[...] Wars is Zynga’s third title released for the iPhone after Live Poker and Scramble Live. As it stands, the new app is available for any iPhone or iPod Touch, and is [...]
June 24th, 2009 at 7:40 am
[...] a number of its popular Facebook and MySpace titles available for the Apple device. These include Live Poker, Mafia Wars, Vampires: Bloodlust, and Scramble Live. Of the four, only the latter does not utilize [...]