Category Archives: Zynga

Is Zynga the evil emperor of the social scene, or does the problem extend beyond everyone’s favourite scapegoat? Nathan Grayson reports.

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Zynga’s first public quarterly financial report saw the casual publisher incur heavy losses, but an increased user base.

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In the course of filing a $5 billion IPO, Facebook has revealed just how important Zynga is to the social network’s success.

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Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has defended the derivativeness of Dream Heights as standard industry practice.

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Social Gaming giant Zynga’s once again come under the spotlight for allegedly cloning other studios’ work.

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Tiny Tower developer Nimblebit doesn’t seem at all happy about Zynga’s latest mobile effort, Dream Heights.

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Sterne Agee’s Arvind Bhatia has highlighted some disturbing figures in Zynga’s finances.

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Reuters reports that Zynga has made four recent acquisitions, all mobile developers. Perhaps the most notable is its September purchase of San Francisco-based Page44, which ported World of Goo to iOS; the port has sold over 1 million copies. In August, Zynga got hold of fellow San Franciscans HipLogic, and New York team Astro Ape. Further afield, a December deal netted the German Gamedoctors in December. Zynga went public in December with the largest tech IPO since Google, but has suffered fluctuating stock price in the interim.

Zynga’s announced its hired Barry Cottle as the company’s new executive vice president of business and corporate development. Cottle was previously president of EA Interactive. EA has responded to his departure by sending out an internal memo, penned by CEO John Riccitiello that confirms EAi has folded into other parts of the company.

Thanks, Gama.

After a turbulent start, sharp drops, and subsequent levelling, Zynga stock has taken another tumble. Investors were apparently not impressed with early 2012 releases, letting shares drop in value by 3% to close at $8.91. Gamasutra reports trading was even worse during the day, coming perilously close to an all-time low. The social games publisher just released Scramble with Friends, its first mobile and second overall release since going public late last year with a record IPO.

Zynga has launched its hidden object game, fittingly titled Hidden Chronicles, through Facebook. The game is set in a Victorian estate and is in a similar vein to Playdom’s Gardens of Time which boasts 7.6 million MAU. Hidden Chronicles was announced
in October, and is the first new title from the social game maker since going public in late 2011. A video for the game is posted below. Thanks, Gamasutra.

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Business Insider reports investors are proving leery of Zynga stock, following the social publisher’s initial public offering last Friday. On the morning of its second day of trading, the stock had dropped 4% from its IPO price to $9.10, and closed at $9.05, almost 10% down. Bloomberg‘s Paul Kedrosky cited both poor market conditions and Zynga’s weak fundamentals for a prediction that the stock will drop to around $6 within the coming 12 months. Zynga’s IPO raised $1 billion, giving it the largest tech IPO since Google’s in 2004, but its first day of trading saw massive fluctuations.

The trepidation of stock analysts about Zynga’s future (many had said it wasn’t worth the asking price) was proven wrong early this morning as Zynga’s first day on the market started well, climbing 10% to $11 per share. Then it was proven right as the stock tumbled, then it surged again. So where do they stand?

As of late afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange, Zynga’s stock has regulated to about the same place it started, around $10/share. The day has no doubt been an emotional rollercoaster ride for Zynga who started the day as the year’s most successful Initial Public Offering, but several times looked like it might become the year’s biggest tragedy. Their IPO produced about $1 billion, which is the largest of any company this year, and the largest tech IPO since Google in 2004.

Via the Wall Street Journal.

Talk surrounding the looming Zynga initial public offering has the social games publisher asking $10 for each of its 100 million shares.

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Forestville, outed last week by a string of domain name registrations, is Zynga’s newest mobile title.

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Kotaku cites an anonymous source as verification of a widespread rumour that Zynga will finally make its initial public offering this Friday. The source reports employees will attend meetings before the end of the week, to be briefed on how the IPO will affect their positions. The social games publisher recently lowered its valuation from $10 billion to $7 billion, but expects paid subscribers to rise in the wake of going public. Zynga currently holds the top five chart positions on Facebook’s daily users tracking.

AppData has released figures today, showing the Daily Average Users of Facebook titles, and Zynga tops the list with five: CityVille, CastleVille, FarmVille, Texas HoldEm Poker, and Words With Friends. Good news for the firm, which is getting ready to launch its initial public offering. Figures range from 10 million for CityVille to 5.7 million for Words With Friends, with the later gaining 500,000 users in the last week alone.

EA’s The Sims Social came in sixth place with 5.6 million DAU, which hit 6.1 million DAU a month ago. Monthly Average Users for EA’s title have dropped from over 35 million to less than 29 million .Thanks, IndustryGamers.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has predicted the number of premium members will spike after the company’s IPO at some point before Christmas, As pointed out by VentureBeat, the company has 215 members, 2.5% to 3% of which rep its user base by buying Facebook Credits for virtual goods. “We could see that doubling,” said Pincus in a room of up to 100 potential investors, via Reuters. Zynga is expected to go public on the NASDAQ next week.

Zynga’s told VG247 it has settled with Brazilian social games start-up Vostu over copyright claims that the latter infringed the company’s “creative works.”

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Zynga’s registered 19 domains including the name ForestVille.

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