Like all of y’all I just read Paul Graham’s SOPA-soaked call for a tech startup that would kill Hollywood. You would have to be a complete idiot to think Hollywood (or at least some part of Hollywood) isn’t ripe for disruption BUT …
“The people who run it are so mean and so politically connected that they could do a lot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. It would therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise.”
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Zynga is starting off 2012 with a bang. After launching its newest Facebook title Hidden Chronicles yesterday, the social gaming giant is debuting its latest mobile game, ‘Scramble With Friends,’ which is an iOS game that combines word scramble and formation with the social features of the ‘With Friends’ gaming suite.
As you may know, via the Newtoy acquisition in 2010, Zynga has helped develop a suite of ‘With Friends’ mobile titles including the popular Scrabble-like game ‘Words With Friends’ and the recently launched mobile take on Hangman, ‘Hanging With Friends.’
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Hidden object games, such as Where’s Waldo, have been popular in all mediums with a variety of ages of game players. But it’s a genre that social gaming giant Zynga has left untouched, until now. Today, Zynga is launching its first hidden object Facebook game with a social twist, Hidden Chronicles. The game, which will roll out to the public this morning, allows players to find hidden objects, solve puzzles, and unlock mysteries, combining memory, skill, and social gameplay.
In a nutshell, players unlock new locations by completing quests, mastering scenes, solving puzzles, and restoring an estate, Ramsey Manor. Players will earn coins, experience points, and unique items to help them customize their estate. → Read More
Zynga, which debuted the largest technology IPO since Google on Friday, saw shares drop in early morning trading on the second day listed on the Nasdaq. On Friday, Zynga closed 10 percent below its opening trade of $11 per share, after pricing on Thursday evening at $10 per share. This morning, Zynga opened at $9.36 but dropped as much as 5 percent in morning trading. Update: Zynga shares closed at $9.05, down 4.75 percent. During daytime trading, shares fell as low as $8.75.
Unlike some of the other tech IPOs that have listed this year, Zynga didn’t see a huge pop in the first day of trading. The company offered 100,000,000 shares of Class A common stock in the offering, raising $1 billion. → Read More
Zynga is still in its quiet period for another 24 days after going public yesterday, so chief operating officer John Schappert wouldn’t answer my more specific questions about the company’s future plans when I talked to him last night.
After opening up at an aggressively priced $10 per share, the company had a slight pop before closing down 5% yesterday. But as Schappert emphasizes to me in the interview below, ZNGA is here for the long-term and its investors should be thinking that way, too.
He adds some color to the roadshow video the company has been showing investors over the last couple weeks, discussing the company’s expansion plans across social and mobile platforms, and internationally. → Read More
With its initial public offering coming up later this week, Zynga is making a few notable traffic gains on Facebook and mobile. Older games like FarmVille are growing, not just new ones like CastleVille. The obvious reasons include it doing more advertising and cross-promotion — and getting some extra publicity out of new launches and media events.
But it looks like there’s more going. Facebook appears to have made a few adjustments to how users see app activity within the last month or so. → Read More
Back in August, social game developer Kixeye raised $18 million in series C financing, and added Zynga Andrew Trader to its Board of Directors. And today the self-proclaimed “largest maker of online strategy combat games” has announced the addition of another ex-Zynga exec into the fold.
Brandon Barber will be joining Kixeye as the SVP of Marketing, where he will report directly to Chairman and CEO Will Harbin. Barber brings significant gaming experience to Kixeye, as he previously co-founded online sports game developer Lionside, which was acquired by ngmoco (qua DeNA) in June of this year. Behind Barber (who was also VP of Marketing and Production), Lionside brought sports games to Facebook, and created titles like NBA Legend and Lionside Football. → Read More
This is a big week for Zynga, as the gaming giant readies for its debut on the public markets at the end of the week. The company’s offering is expected to price this week and will raise around $1 billion in the IPO. Interestingly, Zynga passed a pretty major milestone this week, according to Inside Network’s AppData.
Currently, Zynga has the top five games on Facebook using daily active user numbers, with Words With Friends edging out EA’s Sims Social. CityVille took the top spot with 10.1 million DAU, followed by CastleVille (8.1 million DAU); FarmVille (7.2 million DAU); Texas HoldEm Poker (6.3 million DAU) and Words With Friends (5.7 million DAU).
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Zynga and Vostu has settled their copyright lawsuits, according to a representative for Vostu. Vostu has paid Zynga an undisclosed sum as part of the settlement and made changes to its games.
Here is the joint statement the companies issued: “Zynga and Vostu have settled the copyright lawsuits and counterclaims against each other in the United States and Brazil. As part of the settlement, Vostu made a monetary payment to Zynga and made some changes to four of its games. The parties are pleased to have settled their disputes and to now put these matters behind them.” → Read More
Social gaming giant Zynga has just filed its updated S-1 with pricing information ahead of its roadshow. The price range, according to the filing, will be between $8.50 and $10 per share.
Offering 100 million shares, the company plans to raise over $1 billion. Zynga plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol ‘ZNGA.’ At the high end of the range, Zynga would be valued at around $7 billion. → Read More
Social game developer Zynga will start talking to potential public investors this Monday ahead of a mid-December IPO, according to reports earlier this week. The question is: how much will it be selling its stock for? That information has been expected to surface in an amended filing on Monday, but Reuters has some early details, that we’ve confirmed with a source close to the company.
Zynga is seeking to raise around $900 million by selling 10% of its stock at a range between $8 and $10 per share, for a valuation of around $10 billion, according to the report. Speculation had previously been that it would go for between $15 billion and $20 billion, and a third-party valuation analysis that Zynga had provided in a recent filing amendment indicated it was worth $14.05 billion.
Our source says Reuter’s range is correct, and adds that the decrease is due to Zynga’s concerns over larger economic issues, like any fallout out from Europe’s financial crisis, and the poor reception that other tech IPOs have had recently. Deals site group Groupon went public at $17.8 billion, but has dropped to towards $10 billion recently (although it’s climbing back up in the last couple days). → Read More
Top social game developer Zynga has been widely expected to go public anytime… for months. But now we have a date range — mid-December, according to DealBook. That follows up on an earlier report today by Fortune that Zynga is starting a “road show” to prospective public investors on Monday to stir up interest ahead of the offering. An amended S-1 is also expected that day detailing the number and price of shares, as Inside Mobile Apps also hears.
Finally, after months of media scrutiny about Zynga’s business and traffic (that the company has been legally prevented from responding to), and many a cancelled conference appearance by Zynga executives, public investors will get to decide what they really think.
If Zynga is going to go public as it had said it intended to in its original S-1 filing this past June, the time is now. Macroeconomic conditions are especially uncertain due to big questions around how Europe is going to get out of its ongoing financial crisis. If the eurozone falls apart within the next few weeks or months (or days), investors are likely to have even less interest in a new-fangled type of tech company. Larger fears could be contributing to the poor recent performance of other recent tech IPOs, like Groupon, and Zynga now has to convince the world that it’s different in a good way. And obviously, how Zynga does could shape the perception around the forthcoming IPO of its main platform provider, Facebook. → Read More
Zynga’s newest Facebook game, CastleVille, has crossed five million daily active users. To put this in perspective, the social gaming giant’s fastest growing (and most popular) game CityVille, only reached 3.2 million daily active users six days after its launch.
The newest title from the social gaming giant allows players to build mini-empires from castles, craft art and armour and trade, and defend your kingdom in a medieval world. The game was created by the Zynga Dallas team, which was part of the social gaming giant’s acquisition of Bonfire Studios. → Read More
Rovio’s hit game Angry Birds has made a business out of offering plush toys, and it was only a matter of time before social gaming giant Zynga would get into the market as well. Today, Zynga is announcing a partnership with electronics retailer Best Buy to sell limited-edition toys from the company’s popular game FarmVille at Best Buy locations (and on its retail site) in the U.S. You can order the toys here.
Best Buy will offer eight exclusive FarmVille collectible plush toys, including a pig, goat, cow, sheep, chicken, duck, horse and rabbit, all dressed in seasonal winter garb, to customers. Pre-orders for the toys begin today with availability in-store beginning November 25. → Read More
Zynga just filed a new S-1 today in its upcoming IPO, reporting new revenue, income, and usage stats. Revenue came in at $306.8 million for the quarter, which is up 80 percent from Q3 2010. Net income was $12.5 million, down 50 percent from the third quarter 2010 ($27.2 million).
Growth in revenue quarter over quarter also appears to be slowing. Revenue only grew 10 percent from the second quarter, compared to and 15 percent increase from Q1 to Q2. → Read More
‘Tis the season of the IPO. So far, 2011 has seen companies like LinkedIn, Pandora, Yandex, Zillow, and RenRen come to market. As you’ve heard, Groupon and Zynga are next up in the IPO pipeline, with both companies arriving on public markets within weeks of each other. Groupon, barring some catastrophic event, will begin trading publicly on NASDAQ November 4th, with shares set at $20 a pop at a valuation of $12.7 billion.
Zynga, too, is expected to trade on NASDAQ beginning the week before Thanksgiving, and according to its revised S-1 filing with the SEC, a “third party” has valued the company at approximately $14 billion. In the same ballpark as Groupon.
So, the question becomes this: Notwithstanding their potential overvaluations at the time they go public, which of the two companies stands to be the most successful and the most valuable in the long run, post-IPO? → Read More
As Zynga announced at an event a few weeks ago, the newest title in the “Ville” franchise, which includes FarmVille, FrontierVille, and CityVille, is CastleVille. The newest title from the social gaming giant allows players to build mini-empires from castles, craft art and armour and trade, and defend your kingdom in a medieval world. The game was created by the Zynga Dallas team, which was part of the social gaming giant’s acquisition of Bonfire Studios.
Zynga Dallas director Bill Jackson explains that the studio took key elements of each ‘Ville’ title and brought the best into CastleVille. He explains that CastleVille combines with elements of self-expression from FarmVille, the ability to build the fantasy city of your dreams with CityVille, and the rich narrative and storytelling features from FrontierVille. The game is also experimenting with new ways of being social, and self-expression. → Read More
Despite a couple big-name companies like Groupon and Zynga lining up for IPOs, the demand for private company stock on alternative exchanges keeps rising. Private stock transactions on SecondMarket in the first three quarters of 2011 totaled $435 million, a 73 percent increase over the same period last year. In the third quarter alone, there were $167 million worth of transactions on SecondMarket, up 49 percent from the second quarter.
Who is buying all of these shares? SecondMarket breaks it out in its third quarter report. Wealthy “accredited individuals” made up the largest share of buyers (63 percent by dollar amount), followed by asset managers (22.3 percent of transactions), hedge funds (7.8 percent), and venture capital funds (5.1 percent). VC funds became much more active on SecondMarket in the quarter, accounting for 17.5 percent of the transactions by number. Last quarter, VCs made up less than 1 percent of transactions (and only 0.2 percent by dollar amount). → Read More
Napster co-founder, former Facebook president and current Airtime CEO Sean Parker subbed in for Zynga CEO Mark Pincus today onstage at Web 2.0 Summit, when Pincus couldn’t speak because of Zynga’s quiet period (sidenote: expect an IPO within the next month, yo). You know what’s cool? That the 15-year-old Parker, oddly enough, used to intern for Mark Pincus’ Washington, D.C. startup, FreeLoader, the first consumer push information service, before he, you know, became famous. Talk about what goes around comes around. → Read More
So Facebook’s new Menlo Park office space is pretty snazzy, sure. But check out what Zynga’s done with its newly leased 270,000 square feet at San Francisco’s Townsend and Eighth, because sheesh… (We were there because a bunch of announcements were going down earlier today.)
The space was decorated by Zynga’s “Minister of Cool” Eric McDougal, who led internal Zynga teams focused on integrating unique lighting, interior design and functionality. “We did a lot of things to make it feel like home,” Zynga’s Dani Dudeck told me.
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San Francisco, CA
