It was in October of last year that Zynga stated they will be launching their own gaming site independent of Facebook, which was dubbed Zynga Direct, or Project Z.  And finally, after months of waiting, Zynga launched Project Z this week.

Zynga debuts the beta release of Zynga.com, the company’s new destination for social games to let players discover and play social games created by third party game developers. These platform partners will be able to reach new audiences and make their games even more social.

“We built Zynga.com to give our players more ways to connect with each other and play great social games whether built by Zynga or other talented developers,” said Mark Pincus, founder and CEO, Zynga. “Together with our platform partners, we look forward to bringing more play to the world on our platform.”

The initial beta release of Zynga.com features:

• zFriends – Connect and play with more people, beyond your Facebook friends, who love to play as much as you do.
• More Games – Five of Zynga’s top games – CastleVille, Words With Friends, CityVille, Hidden Chronicles and Zynga Poker – will be accessible on the site at launch, but soon you will be able to discover and play more social games by Zynga and third party game developers.
• Social Stream – Get real-time access to items needed to advance faster in games by posting to Zynga’s live social stream without ever leaving your game board.
• Player Profile – A profile that is all about the way you play, highlighting your favorite games, top zFriends, recent activity and your helpfulness score to see how you stack up against friends.
• Live Chat – Without leaving the game board, you can also chat with zFriends in real-time to send gifts, strategize, or just say ‘OMG, look at the size of that beastie!’

The launch also enables third party developers to create and publish games on the Zynga Platform.  At the moment, Zynga is working with a number of early partners, including: Mob Science, Row Sham Bow and Sava Transmedia which will have access to the 240 million monthly active users who currently play Zynga games by publishing and promoting them across the Zynga network.  Aside from inviting developers to promote their games, Zynga will also enable partners to tap into channels and features that increase social engagement, analytics that measure and drive social, and back end technology that ensures scalability and availability.

Keep in mind, Zynga is not truly independent from Facebook since you still need to connect to Facebook to play games at Zynga’s site.  This new gaming platform might be a move for Zynga to earn more revenue since only 1.6% of their total gamers actually spend money on their games in Q4 2011.  Also, with the slight independence from Facebook, those willing to pay for game items would have to pay directly at Zynga and not Facebook.

Yummy Partnership

Aside from launching Project Z, Zynga also announced a partnership with PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay North America division to offer Zynga gamers virtual items with the purchase of specially marked Frito-Lay snacks, including Lay’s Classic potato chips, Doritos Nacho Cheese flavored tortilla chips, Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream flavored potato chips, Cheetos Crunchy cheese flavored snacks and Funyuns onion flavored rings. The promo will run March 1 to April 12, 2012 and will be featured on five million bags available at more than 3,400 Walmart stores nationwide.