Finally, Zynga enters Euro fray

The fast-growing games giant Zynga has finally landed in Europe.

The FarmVille and FrontierVille firm this evening confirmed it has acquired German company Dextrose, creator of the Aves Engine.

Mainz-based Dextrose was only formed a year ago to sell its browser based games technology.

Dextrose will become Zynga Germany, based in Frankfurt, with co-founders Paul Bakaus and Rocco Di Leo respectively becoming chief technology officer and country manager of the subsidiary.

It’s Zynga’s first move into Europe, despite owning 13 studios around the world and employing 1,200 staff.

The firm is in the midst of an acquisition spree – it nabbed Boston studio Conduit Labs just last month, opened a Japan wing the month before, grabbed Texas-based studio Challenge Games in June, and bought Beijing-based social gaming company XPD Media in May.

With $147m investment secured from Japanese investor SoftBank in the summer, that’s hardly a surprise – especially when analysts say it generates $350m every six months through its hugely popular microtransaction-fuelled and free to play social network games.

The oftencontroversial firm is also the subject of much speculation – most recently pundits said the firm was being acquired by Google, or at least forming close ties with the web giant, to supply games content for its upcoming Facebook-rivalling social network.

But it does have a long-term deal in place with Facebook – and a similar deal with Yahoo.