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Social games kingpin Zynga has removed one of its most successful games from struggling social network MySpace.
Users who visit the Mafia Wars page on MySpace are presented with a message that tempts users to visit Zynga’s own website an plan an enhanced version of the game.
“Zynga is discontinuing Mafia Wars on Myspace beginning April 18th, 2011, however, we encourage you to continue playing Mafia Wars at MafiaWars.com,” read a message inside MySpace.
MySpace’s viability as a social games platform has been challenged in recent months.
Playdom had shut down the text-based RPGs Overdrive and Bloodlines, according to an Edge report. Meanwhile, social group RockYou has pulled all content from the site, including games such as Truth Box, RockYou Pets, Superhug! and Speed Racing.
News Corp, which owns MySpace, is being pushed to make difficult decisions as the social network’s popularity plummets.
In March, independent data speculated that the site had lost 10 million users between January and February. The previous twelve months the site’s traffic was estimated to have fallen from 95 million to 63 million unique users.
