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This week's announcement that Facebook has signed what amounts to a concord agreement with Zynga - operators of the social network's most popular and successful games, including the gigantic Farmville - came as something of a surprise to industry watchers. Whispers had been circulating for months suggesting that Zynga was falling out with the firm on whose platform it operates; rumours reached a crescendo last week with both firms reported to be on the verge of an acrimonious split.

Yet this week, suddenly, it's all peace and light between the two, with an agreement signed which keeps Zynga's games on Facebook and ensures that they will transition towards using the social networking platform's Facebook Credits currency more widely. Farmville players can breathe a sigh of relief, while Facebook's growing band of vocal detractors will snap their fingers and mutter darkly about pesky kids, recognising that a golden opportunity to take some of the wind out of Facebook's sails has passed by.

Looking at the substance of this agreement, it's hard to characterise it as much other than a capitulation on Zynga's part. Realistically, it's Zynga that came to the table with grievances - Facebook has, in recent months, taken a number of moves that have not been positive for Zynga's business, including implementing systems which remove game updates wholesale from the frontpages of non-players, and moving towards enforcing Facebook Credits (from which it takes a 30% cut) as the de facto currency for applications on its network.

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