Zynga has announced a subtle but important change with Zynga.com. While in the past it was required that players sign into the site using Facebook, that is no longer mandatory.

“We heard you want a place that is even more dedicated to games and allows you to easily find and connect with other players,” said Zynga CTO Cadir Lee. “We heard you want to share your big wins, level ups and in-game achievements, with players who love the games you do. You also want to create a unique player name like you do in Words With Friends and Draw Something.”

“We appreciate this feedback and are excited to bring you a new Zynga.com. So what’s new Starting next week, when you visit Zynga.com you will see a new streamlined signup that lets you create your own account just for playing games,” he added. “We also wanted to make sure that existing Zynga.com players continue to have the best experience possible so you don’t have to start from scratch. All players will have the option to connect with Facebook and keep your game friends and game progress, while deciding what you share with your gaming community.”

This has a very tangible benefit for Zynga where they will not have to surrender 30 percent of its revenue from the sale of virtual goods with these new accounts to Facebook. Zynga will also be able to better control the advertising being shown on Zynga.com, which is leading to more video ads.

As Zynga builds its own game portal, the company also plans to release more third party titles. “We also want to thank all our Zynga partners — the third party developers who helped bring you more ways to play on Zynga.com. Without our partners we wouldn’t be able to introduce you to some of the most fun and entertaining games on the site — RPGs like Legends: Rise of a Hero and an awesome sim game like Village Life. We know it’s a challenge to keep up with platform changes as we’ve been through it a few times ourselves, so we’re fully committed to working closely with all our partners to make this update as simple and painless as we possibly can. For any developers who are interested in getting their social games in front of millions of people who love to play, please visit us at developers.zynga.com/partners.”

Source: Blog.Zynga.com