The value of partnering platform owners is becoming of increasing importance, in the volume-driven, content-saturated climes of online gaming, including social network gaming. Stimulating sufficient quantities of traffic in free-to-play experiences in order to see worthwhile return on outlay has been a core issue for operators on Facebook: as viral distribution opportunities were dampened, marketing costs grow. And when Facebook introduced a compulsory first-party payment platform to take an increased cut of consumer spend, further downward pressure is placed on game-makers to find new ways to acquire, retain and monetise users more effectively.

Partnership with platform owners, for those operators with sufficient clout or appeal to justify it, will become crucial for companies like Zynga when attempting to gain traction in new territories or sectors. The resulting prominence from preference is especially crucial for cutting through the cluttered discovery experiences of overcrowded outlets, such as Apple's app store, or for channels where marketing may be inhibitive or limited, such as the Xbox Live Arcade store portion of Xbox 360's online marketplace. In the latter case, Microsoft offers promotional seasons of release slates, most notably its annual 'Summer of Arcade', allowing first-party selection to drive uptake.

Facebook has a history of preferential structure with regards to it apps ecosystem. For several years, it offered a visible seal of approval to those apps that successfully graduated a voluntary submission process. Most recently, enhanced presence is an incentive for those developers willing to fully integrate the Facebook Credits payment platform into their games. Indeed, addendums to Zynga's recent S-1 filing show that it and Facebook had struck a relationship designed to offer mutual benefit and growth. While attentive localisation is pivotal for introducing western games to Asian markets (something Zynga has experience of, via its Chinese iteration of FarmVille), brokering first-party relationships is becoming a core concern and an increasingly potent strategy for gaining visibility on platforms that are already rife with competitive content.