CityVille earns two awards in China, builds over 63 million virtual homes

Chinese folk really dig CityVille--er, sorry, we mean Zynga City. The localized version of Zynga's number one Facebook has earned both the critical and commercial acclaim of China. For one, the city-builder just fetched Zynga two awards from publishing partner Tencent during its developers conference this week: Excellent Partner and Top 10 App for Zynga City.

According to Zynga, this is one of the first times an international company has received such awards from Tencent, which mostly recognizes Chinese game developers. Zynga City earned the awards less than a year after Zynga and Tencent joined forces to bring CityVille to Chinese social gamers--Zynga City just launched there last fall.

The developer chalks up the game's success to spot-on localization that not only accurately uses the Chinese language, but uses decorations and architecture that resonate with Chinese gamers. To back pat celebrate, Zynga China threw together an infographic with interesting little factoids about how Chinese gamers have interacted with Zynga City so far. Our personal favorite? The fact that players have sent over 64 million street peddlers to their friends' cities. See the rest below.

Surprised that Zynga has seemingly broken the barrier into the Chinese online gaming world? What other Zynga games would do well in in the East? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.