This is why social game makers want to join the new Zynga.com

It's called cross promotion. A practice in which a game developer pimps new games within or around existing games to pique the interest of its loyal fans in said new game, Zynga has arguably mastered the art. Cross promotion is one of the number one tools the giant games maker uses to make sure multiple games reach tens of millions of players at the same time, and it's one of the many services the developer offers to third party studios that sign offer their games on the new Zynga.com.

Start-up Row Sham Bow is one of those studios, and Woodland Heroes is the first game to experience the power of Zynga's cross promotion machine. Inside Social Games reports that Woodland Heroes now appears above other Zynga games on Facebook in what the company calls the zBar, or the marquee-type feature that rests above all of its social games. The idea is that players will notice Woodland Heroes above, say, CityVille and click on it to see what's up.

And according to Zynga Platform Partners head Rob Dyer, this is just the beginning for the promotional tools at hand to make sure Zynga delivers on its promises to third party social game makers. And even with 292 million monthly and 65 million daily players, Dyer knows that there's plenty more work to be done if Zynga truly wants to deliver.

Driving players to try out new social games is one thing," Dyer wrote on the Zynga blog, "but the trick is making sure they stick around; that's where some of our upcoming tools to increase social engagement come in."

Do you think that Zynga.com will successfully uplift games like Woodland Heroes? What does this mean for other social game networks? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.