Zynga’s Crypto Gaming Team Just Spun Out and Revealed a New Game

ZyngaD20 Labs was co-founded and is led by Matt Wolf, formerly the VP of Web3 gaming at Zynga, alongside ex-Zynga Web3 General Manager Tommy Ngo. By breaking off from the mobile gaming publisher, which is owned by gaming giant Take-Two Interactive, Wolf said that D20 Labs is able to dive deeper into the decidedly less-corporate world of crypto gaming.“Our recent independence from Zynga is historic, and positions D20 Labs as uniquely qualified to push the boundaries of video game innovation given our Web2/Web3 hybrid DNA,” Wolf told D20 Labs has already announced Introducing the worldwide release of Royal Nutz Poker Club, D20’s first social casino poker game – built on Base and optimized for both Web and Mobile experiences ♣️♦️♥️♠️RNPC will be the first multi-table poker championship game brought onchain, powered by sponsorships.… pic.twitter.com/lZaMBRNM7N— Sugartown (@visitsugartown) September 12, 2024Sugartown is an IP that has a number of mini-games released under it, branded as a games hub strapped with Web3 incentives—currently two games have been released called The new web and mobile game will allow users play in poker tournaments in an attempt to climb the leaderboard and win prizes. Owners of Sugartown But players won’t be wagering real cash. D20 claims to have produced a rewards system as the result of its strategic partnerships, the first of which is with ApeChain—the Arbitrum-powered Ethereum scaling network from the ApeCoin DAO.Introducing the worldwide release of Royal Nutz Poker Club, D20’s first social casino poker game – built on Base and optimized for both Web and Mobile experiences ♣️♦️♥️♠️RNPC will be the first multi-table poker championship game brought onchain, powered by sponsorships.… pic.twitter.com/lZaMBRNM7N— Sugartown (@visitsugartown) September 12, 2024D20 Labs made its first rumblings in late August. While Zynga made no formal announcement about the move, the publisher did confirm the move to “[D20] has taken full ownership of the Sugartown game and IP from Zynga,” a spokesperson for Zynga told When asked for more details on how power was transferred and what this means about the future of Web3 gaming for Zynga, the publisher declined to comment. Take-Two—which also owns the Rockstar Games and 2K Sports brands—acquired Zynga in 2022 around the same time that the developer first Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, said at the time that the Zynga deal would Following the spinout and formation of D20 Labs, according to What has been confirmed, however, is that Royal Nutz Poker Club is the first of many planned future games from D20 Labs alongside the development of Sugartown.Edited by Andrew Hayward