Zynga Launches Beta For First International Title

Social games company Zynga has launched its public beta for Zynga Texas Poker, the FarmVille developer's first internationally-localized game, in traditional Chinese. The localized title is based on the studio's Texas Holdem Poker, the third most popular game on Facebook with more than 28 million monthly active players, right behind Zynga's FarmVille and FrontierVille. The original game debuted some three years ago, and receives more than 5.6 million players daily. Zynga Texas Poker allows users to play poker with their friends and others around the world, compare their rankings on leaderboards, join tournaments, complete group challenges, buy virtual goods to customize their appearance (e.g. drinks, pets), and earn collectible items. Players can also win free prizes, like real money and trips to Las Vegas. Zynga is giving out its largest prize in its history to celebrate the game's beta launch: a full stack of 8,888 Vegas-style Poker chips to all players in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and a grand prize to join a local "ShootOut tournament" and compete for $888,000 Taiwanese dollars. This beta launch for Zynga Texas Poker comes after a series of major moves by the company in Asia, including its $150 million financing from Softbank, its establishing of a Zynga Japan joint venture with Softbank, and its acquisitions of Beijing-based social games studio XPD Media and Tokyo-based startup Unoh.