Some URL sleuthing by the domain-watching site Fusible revealed that the domain familyville.com has changed hands and hosts in a manner similar to URLs for Zynga properties like Cityville.
What most ties familyville.com to Zynga was its brief ownership, in March, by IPCybercrime, which acquired the domain cityville.com on behalf of Zynga in June 2010 for $38,000. IPCybercrime's motto, "Your guys for undercover buys," advertises it as a discreet broker for such high profile acquisitions, among other intellectual property services.
In April, the registration switched to GoDaddy's Domains by Proxy; Fusible notes that Zynga uses the WHOIS privacy service for many of its domain names. Further, familyville.com has changed over to the name server used by many of Zynga's most popular domains.
If this is indeed Zynga's next move, it would make a lot of sense. At E3, Electronic Arts announced The Sims Social would be making its way to Facebook, an app that is directly competitive to Zynga's casual/social games dominance on the network. The Sims Social isn't out yet, but it might want to hurry up.
Will Zynga give The Sims on Facebook a run for its money with Familyville? [Fusible]