Google Launching Google Games… with Zynga?

TechCrunch is featuring an extensive article claiming that Google Games is closer than we think, and that Zynga will be highly involved.  Their “multiple sources” confirm that Google has quietly invested $100-200 million in the social game company, forging a social media alliance.

Zynga will be the cornerstone of a new Google Games to launch later this year, say multiple sources. Not only will Zynga’s games give Google Games a solid base of social games to build on, but it will also give Google the beginning of a true social graph as users log into Google to play the games.

Zynga’s particular brand of social gaming has been a runaway success, even if their methods are sometimes dubious.  TechCrunch’s sources say that Zynga has earned $350 million in the first half of this year alone, and expect to push past the $1 billion in revenue mark in 2011.

The presence of Zynga’s games on Facebook have certainly driven a lot of traffic for the world’s most popular social networking site, and it’s understandable that Google (and others) might want a piece of that metaphorical pie.

Read the full TechCrunch article here.