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Zynga CityVille's new neighborhood: China

Zynga CityVille for China
Zynga

(CBS) - Social gaming company Zynga is expanding its reach to China, said the San Francisco-based company in a statement today.

A new version of CityVille, which is already playable in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Indonesian and Turkish, will be offered to users in China's Tencent network.

The deal with the Chinese Internet portal (which has 674.3 million active users as of March 31,  according to Los Angeles Times) is a new trend. Other gaming companies are also working to localize versions of their hit games for the Chinese market, says PC World. "PopCap Games is developing its Plants vs. Zombies game for the Chinese Facebook-like site Renren. The Finnish company Rovio plans to create localized versions of its Angry Birds game for mobile phones and PCs in China," PC World reports.

"The partnership also builds on Zynga's plans to expand beyond Facebook as it seeks to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering," says Bloomberg.

Zynga files for an IPO

For China, the game has been renamed "Zynga City" and will incorporate local features to appeal to the Asian audience.

It will go live this week on Pengyou (which means "friend" in Mandarin), Tencent's new social network. It will roll out later this year on Q Zone, Tencent's larger social network.

Complete coverage of Zynga on Tech Talk

"International and mobile represent two major areas where Zynga would need to go into in order to grow," Justin Smith, founder of market research firm Inside Network, told Los Angeles Times.

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