Zynga opens ‘key technology’ studio

Farmville creator Zynga is driving forward its rapid expansion operation by today opening a new studio in Bangalore, India.

The social games giant said the new outfit will work specifically on building game mechanics and in-game features, among other technologies.

In what could be described as ‘an internal outsource arm’ the Zynga India group will assist on projects while the other side of the world – specifically the group’s main San Francisco office – is asleep.

The company began operating in India last year, with West Asian group creating Membase – a powerful database management system optimised for storing data behind interactive Web applications.

Zynga studio boss Mark Skaggs last week described the firm’s server operations as invaluable to the company.

Shan Kadavil, Zynga India country manager, said “the online social gaming world generates several petabytes of data, which cannot be stored in traditional databases because of the challenges of scale”.

“Membase was developed to solve this problem. Zynga Studio will continue to be committed to bringing in such technological innovations,” Kadavil added.

Zynga claimed it had 21 million users in India – nearly a tenth of its 250 million global userbase.