Zynga Purchases cocos2d Group, Pledges Continued Open-Source Joy
May 10, 2011
Social gaming giant Zynga is on an absolute tear lately, buying up scores of development firms to add to its massive iOS department as it expands its scope more and more beyond Facebook's environment. In addition to the purchase and rebranding of Words With Friends app-maker Newtoy, Zynga has just completed its acquisition of Wonderland Software and Area/Code.
Now, they've hired the cocos2d for iPhone team.
Among other things, cocos2d for iPhone "is a framework for building 2D games, demos, and other graphical/interactive applications. It is based on the cocos2d design: it uses the same concepts, but instead of using python it uses objective-c."
However, independent developers reliant on the open source cocos2d engine needn't worry. Apparently, Zynga has their backs, as TUAW reports that,
while Zynga has hired Ricardo Quesada and Rolando Abarca on as developers to use the engine with its own iOS titles, all indications are that the cocos2d community will remain open and available to all, just as the core engine code will stay open source.Zynga even reports on their blog that they "look forward to advancing the cocos2d for iPhone open source project alongside the cocos2d for iPhone developer community." All these acquisitions definitely make us wonder what's up Zynga's sleeve for future titles and what original iOS games are currently in development. Maybe they'll let us in on their plans come WWDC in June. And you can be sure we'll be there to let you know!
