Markets

Yesterday, we reported that Zynga was possibly setting up shop in Beijing and making a few notable hires in China. It looks like we were on to something because today, the social gaming giant is announcing the acquisition of Beijing-based social gaming company XPD Media . Along with the acquisition, Zynga is also announcing the opening of the Zynga Beijing studio, the second international office for the gaming company (Zynga set up shop in Bangalore, India in March). Terms of the deal were not disclosed. This is Zynga's fourth acquisition over the past two year (that's been made public, that is); the company previously bought YoVille, Serious Business , and My Mini Life . For Zynga, the acquisition represents the company's initial foray into the Asian gaming market, which is rapidly growing. One of Zynga’s biggest competitors, Playfish , already has an office in China. The deal is more of a talent acquisition and less of a userbase acquisition—XPD Media has a number of talented developers and and engineers, and Zynga is planning in hiring on hiring a CTO, HR manager and software engineers in the new office.