Social gaming giant Zynga has released the iPhone version of its hugely popular Farmville Facebook game. The game went live on the App Store this morning, to accompany the release of the new iPhone 4 handset. It was unveiled earlier this month by Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, during Apple's WWDC keynote.
The farming game has been a phenomenon on Facebook, signing up more than 75 million players. 200 million virtual gifts are sent by its players every day, and the game has racked up more than 100 billion page views in the last year.
Zynga is hoping to translate that success to mobile devices, starting with the iphone and iPod touch.
As on Facebook, the iPhone version is free to play, but runs on a virtual items business model: iOS players can pay £2.99 for 7,500 in-game coins, which can then be spent on items.
iPhone games developers are following Zynga's launch closely: Apple has placed restrictions in the past on developers using its in-app payments to get players to buy virtual currencies.