Zynga takes over Star Wars: Commander and NaturalMotion studio will make a Star Wars mobile game

Zynga has cut a multiyear deal with Disney to make a future Star Wars game, giving the publisher access to one of the biggest licenses in the gaming industry.

As part of the non-exclusive licensing deal, Zynga will take over live operations for the existing mobile tower defense game Star Wars: Commander, a 2014 release. And Zynga’s NaturalMotion studio in the United Kingdom will develop future Star Wars titles, with an option for a second. That’s quite a victory for Zynga, which makes the likes of Zynga Poker, Words With Friends, and racing game CSR2. It’s not clear whether that is bad news for rival Electronic Arts, which makes Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes (a turn-based mobile team fighting game developed by EA Capital Games and published by EA in 2015).

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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.