Zynga is part of the #PlayApartTogether campaign to boost the WHO.

Matthew Wolf interview: Why Zynga is diving into blockchain games

Matthew Wolf started a new job and a new studio at Zynga to make blockchain games back in November. Then Take-Two agreed to buy Zynga for $12.7 billion in January.

Was it a coincidence? Who knows? But Wolf is excited about spinning up the new business to build games that take advantage of blockchain games and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) for Zynga’s customers, who are older players who embrace casual and midcore games on mobile devices. They’re not the typical hardcore console and PC game players who are allergic to any mention of NFTs.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.