Zynga now a third-party publisher, opening new web portal

Zynga has announced Zynga.com, which will allow users to play its games without having to log into Facebook. The web portal also has the ability to host third-parties titles, which will essentially make Zynga the publisher.

Zynga titles claim 240 million monthly active users, and its new portal could be its biggest step to weaning itself away from Facebook - which claims around 30% of the firm's microtransaction revenues.

This new move will also help the firm reach its goal of having 1 billion people playing its games, a number the firm claims is more than attainable.

However, don't expect Zynga games to disappear from Facebook anytime soon, as the firm is locked in an agreement with Facebook which will see the firm's game's monetized through the social network until 2015. It will continue to use Facebook Credits and Facebook Connect, but opening its own portal is Zynga's way of letting its users decide where to play.

"I think we're going to find that out as we launch and make progress," Zynga COO John Schappert told Gamasutra. "We're trying to make the friction as low as possible. You log in on Facebook Connect, you pay with Facebook Credits. We didn't want to break that user experience, we want to make it as seamless as possible.

"It will happen organically. People will choose where they want to play."

Zynga has also announced two new partners in this venture: San Diego's Mob Science which produces the game Coffee Bar, and Orlando's Row Sham Bow which created Woodland Heroes. These games will appear on the new portal site and there are several other developers on board which will be announced at a future date.

The new Zynga Platform will debut later this month on Zynga.com and an open beta phase will start within the next few days.