Zynga Unveils New Games and New Platform, Project Z

Zynga, the largest social gaming network in the world, unveiled plans today to release a new platform which would drastically reduce their dependence on Facebook. As well as the new platform Zynga also showed off a new wave of social games all of which Zynga hopes can reach the success of FarmVille.

The plans were showed off today at an event the approximately four-year old company held in San Francisco. Along with Project Z which is described as a sort of social network by Chief Executive Officer Mark Pincus, Zynga also showed off new titles including “Zynga Bingo,” “CastleVille” and “Hidden Chronicles.”

All of this of course is leading up to the impending Zynga IPO which is valued at around $1 Billion. The new platform will no doubt make investors more interested in the company now that it is trying to break its ties with Facebook which has been one of Zynga’s only sources of revenue over the past 4 years.

Zynga has performed well over the past year. The have around 260 million active users and made around $90 million last year according to filings for the IPO.

Project Z will still be integrated into Facebook  according to the plans but that doesn’t mean you can’t do a little virtual land grabbing now over at zynga.com/ztag where you can reserve your future “zTag,” Project Z’s usernames.

Thanks, BusinessWeek and GigaOM