While the more important gaming news is reserved for next week at the E3 expo in Los Angeles, social gaming giant Zynga’s got something that can’t wait until then: a new partnership with American Express that makes a FarmVille card a sad reality.
Called Zynga Serve Reward, the scheme lets you plant a Money Tree (No, really) in your Facebook farm, then sign up for a branded pre-paid card. For the first five real world purchases of $25 (£15) or higher, you’ll then get Farm Cash rewards: Zynga says more incentives will be added shortly, but for now the cap is at 360 in the company’s FarmVille currency.
“We’re excited to partner with American Express to invent new ways for people to experience Zynga play in more parts of their day,” says Zynga CEO Mark Pincus. “Together we can add surprise and delight to every day shopping.”
That’s one way of putting it anyway. Thankfully the scheme is US-only for now, although Zynga’s got ambitions to bring it to other games including CastleVille and CityVille. Given the wild popularity of its most recent purchase, we would have thought Draw Something would have been an obvious choice, but perhaps it’s saving that one for a rainy day. We’ll cope.
