CityVille leaves Zynga Lotto fans out in the suburbs

Zynga Lotto fans are feeling quite abandoned right now.

Nearly two months ago, Zynga used Zynga Lotto -- a free, virtual lottery system with exclusive freebies strictly for fans of Zynga's games -- to announce a new Facebook game for the fall. Players had to collect three keys by 'scratching off' tickets. After receiving the keys, they were awarded with the following message: "YOU WON! Exclusive access to Zynga's newest game! (Coming soon)." At which point, Zynga Lotto seemed more awesome than ever. But suddenly, a week after that, Zynga Lotto gets shut down without warning. And then, one week ago from today, Zynga lifts the curtain on their new game, which turns out to be CityVille.

Understandably, this revelation has left some fans upset and others confused, so here's what's going on. As far as I can tell, Zynga hasn't contacted any of the Zynga Lotto winners for the CityVille exclusive "sneak peak" grand prize (of which I am one), so if you didn't get an email from them about it, it's not because your spam filter ate it. I'm also here to confirm that there is no other game coming out -- CityVille is where it's at.

Now, exactly when CityVille will be launching is the top question on people's minds. Despite the big unveiling last week, no one can play the game yet. CityVille is set to be Zynga's first worldwide launch, and is going to be available in five languages -- English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. That's certainly going to take time to do. For now, we can only hope that when the game's halfway to ready, and no matter how buggy or rocky the start, all the Zynga Lotto winners can get first dibs.