It looks like Facebook-megaproducer Zynga may be readying themselves to attempt a spiritual successor to FarmVille. The company is currently working on a title which looks to be under the 'temporary' name of Big Harvest. Whether the name will eventually by changed to, say, Farmville 2, remains a mystery for now.

Regardless of titling, it's safe to say that Big Harvest is big news for any follower of either Zynga or Facebook games.

FarmVille has been a giant in terms of revenue for Zynga, but the former behemoth has been losing ground to games like CityVille and other cash giants for some time now. With the farm-friendly game bringing in 29% of Zynga's fiscal revenue, the company will be playing their cards extremely carefully whilst trying to implement such a sequel.

This isn't new territory for Zynga - when they tried to transition users from Mafia Wars to Mafia Wars 2, a large amount of their cash whales (people who purchase a significant amount of e-product) quit playing the sequel within weeks. If this happened with Big Harvest, their income would suffer a critical blow.

Zynga Big Harvest Farmville Screenshot

With Zynga being valued between $15-20 billion, funding is certainly no problem for studio which has been occasionally accused of nefariousness. It looks like the development quality has been high, with a plush new 3D system in place with more lively graphics to keep users interested. There are also several new features to Big Harvest, like the ability to turn crops into feed and taking milk and eggs from animals. As the game comes closer to being released to the public, more new features - and ways to sell digital content - are sure to be revealed.

Zynga refused to comment on the current state of the product, but hinted to TechCrunch that a FarmVille sequel was certainly in the cards:

"We don’t comment on what we may or may not be working on. What we can tell you is that we’re always looking for ways to bring players the best experience by listening to their feedback and continuously innovating on our games."

It goes without saying that this looks to be Zynga's biggest challenge yet, and one that can either harvest a successful increase in profits, or seriously damage their main source of income.

Would you be excited for a FarmVille sequel? Do you think Zynga could successfully transition their users over to a new farming game?

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Source: TechCrunch