Is this Zynga’s next cash cow? It looks like Farmville 2.0 is already in beta testing under the name ‘Big Harvest’ in the Philippines, a tipster tells us.
As you can see, the game is way more three-dimensional, the crops are really lush and the graphics are just of a different quality level. There are several tweaks to the game play. Crops that are harvested can be turned into feed. Animals… → Read More
Draw Something, the game that could do no wrong now seems like it can do little right, at least according to the blogosphere. There’s been a string of stories from virtually everyone saying that the OMGPOP acquisition is “haunting” Zynga because Draw Something’s daily active usage is down to 9.1 million daily active users from its peak of 14.6 million daily active users.
It’s funny how the… → Read More
Zynga is taking yet another step away from its long line of casual sim “-Ville” games today with the launch of Bubble Safari. It’s an arcade game where a monkey named “Bubbles” has to shoot down pieces of fruit hanging above him to save his friends from poachers. If he matches several of the same kinds of fruit in a row, they’ll tumble down and get sorted into baskets by hummingbirds.
These… → Read More
Draw Something has been a hot topic of late. About a month ago, OMGPOP, the company behind the hit game, was acquired by Zynga as the web gaming company attempts the migration over to mobile. The $180 million deal took Zynga’s daily user traffic up 25 percent, and even though Draw Something has been bleeding users, the motivation behind the acquisition circles back to Zynga’s transition to mobile. → Read More
Stepping back from remarks a few weeks ago that suggested that Zynga was about to go on a shopping spree, Zynga chief executive Mark Pincus said the $180 million acquisition of Draw Something-maker OMGPOP was a “rare instance.”
Although OMGPOP was certainly a step up from anything Zynga has ever done before, Pincus said it didn’t represent a change in strategy from last year. He said Zynga will… → Read More
Zynga’s revenues rose 32 percent to $321 million in the first quarter, beating analysts’ estimates of $316.8 million in revenue and earnings of 5 cents a share excluding stock-based expenses. Bookings* came in at a record $329 million, up 15 percent over the year before, and up 7 percent compared to the previous quarter — meaning Zynga didn’t see that seasonal decline in revenues that Facebook… → Read More
Zynga and Facebook are ever gradually trying to separate from each other. It’s working — sort of?
Facebook said today that 15 percent of its revenue in the first quarter came from either advertising or payments tied to Zynga games.* That’s down from 19 percent during the same time a year earlier.
About 11 of the 15 percent in revenue was from the 30 percent revenue share Facebook takes from… → Read More
Tell your friends to hit the App Store or Android market, there’s a new update for Draw Something out today with some cool new features. Now you can chat with friends while you play, save your drawings to your phone or tablet, and share those drawings straight to Facebook or Twitter. Zynga, who recently acquired Draw Something and its developer OMGPOP for over $180 million, hopes these social and… → Read More
Zynga is bolstering its brand advertising efforts by bringing on Julie Shumaker from RockYou as the company’s new vice president of North American sales. She’ll report to Jeff Karp, Zynga’s chief marketing and revenue officer.
The move should help cover at least one recent vacancy. The company’s global director of brand advertising, Manny Anekal, recently defected to mobile advertising startup… → Read More
Zynga has just released a new S-1 in connection with its secondary offering. The company is looking to sell up to 43 million shares (42,969,153 shares to be exact). Zynga’s CEO Mark Pincus will sell 15 percent of his shares, which is worth around $227 million based on yesterday’s stock price. Pincus’ voting power post-sale will go from 36.5 percent to 35.9 percent, according to the… → Read More
In September, social game developer Idle Games launched on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, declaring that they were on a mission to become “the Pixar of casual games.” The startup’s first title, Idle Worship, is a throw-back to Peter Molyneux and EA’s Black & White, except, instead of finding it on a PC, Idle Worship will make its home on that social network everyone’s talking… → Read More
Is Zynga going to leave Facebook to start its own site for gamers? Whispers about this have circulated for years, and today we have an answer: yes and no. Yes, Zynga is starting its own site for games. But no, it’s not leaving Facebook.
At least not for the foreseeable future. Instead, it’s launching a new platform designed to house both its own games and ones from other developers. And, you… → Read More
As mentioned in yesterday’s earnings call, Zynga revealed that the company’s zCloud, its private cloud infrastructure has been scaling significantly in the past year. At the start of 2011, only 20% of Zynga’s daily active users (DAU) were in the zCloud. A year later, nearly 80% of Zynga games’ DAU reside in zCloud, and 20% in the public cloud (powered by AWS). Today the company is revealing… → Read More
After announcing a licensing deal with Hasbro last week, Zynga is debuting another licensing agreement. The social gaming giant is teaming up with game developer Slingo to license casual game Slingo; and launch a social Facebook title Zynga Slingo today. This is the first time Zynga has licensed a game title to date, as the company has been churning out original titles over the past few… → Read More
As we mentioned in our coverage of Zynga’s fourth quarter earnings, mobile has been one of the fast-growing parts of Zynga’s business. On the company’s earnings call, CEO and founder Marc Pincus revealed that mobile users have grown five-fold to 15 million daily active users in 2011. That’s up from 13 million in December.
That’s an addition of 2 million users in the past month, and an addition… → Read More
Social gaming giant Zynga just released its fourth quarter earnings, the company’s first earnings release as a public company. Analysts expected earnings of $0.03 per share on revenue of $302 million. Zynga beat the street, with revenue coming in at $311.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, an increase of 59% compared to the fourth quarter of 2010. In terms of Diluted EPS, Zynga took s a loss… → Read More
Last week, the developers at NimbleBit (makers of iOS Game of the Year, Tiny Tower) accused Zynga of copying them with its new game, Dream Heights. Now, it’s happening again. This time, the accusation comes from Buffalo Studios, which says that the gaming giant copied its flagship title Bingo Blitz with its launch of Zynga Bingo. → Read More
There’s been one trend we’ve been noticing over the past few years when it comes to Zynga’s game development strategy. The social gaming giant likes to re-create classic games like Hangman or hidden puzzles and add social elements for gameplay. We saw this with the release of Hanging With Friends, Scramble With Friends, Hidden Chronicles. And As Zynga revealed in October, next up is Bingo. Today… → Read More
The guys from NimbleBit (developers of Tiny Tower, the game handpicked by Apple as iOS Game Of The Year) are on a bit of a tweeting spree tonight, blasting out two big ol’ gems of knowledge in as many hours.
First: Zynga just launched a new iOS game, and it looks a lot like Tiny Tower. Second (and this one makes that first bit all the more interesting): Zynga allegedly tried to buy NimbleBit… → Read More
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… → Read More
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… → Read More
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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → Read More
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… → 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… → Read More
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